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33p iF. ^opfeinson &mit(). 

OLD LINES IN NEW BLACK AND WHITE. From 
Lowell, Holmes, and Whittier. With 12 full-page illus- 
trations, from designs in charcoal by F. Hopkinson 
Smith. Oblong folio or in portfolio, $12.00. 

The Same. Large-Paper Edition. With Illustrations 
printed on Japanese paper, mounted on plate paper. Edi- 
tion limited to 100 copies. In portfolio (16 x 22 inches). 
#25.00. 

WELL-WORN ROADS OF SPAIN, HOLLAND, AND 
ITALY, travelled by a Painter in search of the Pictur- 
esque. With 16 full-page phototype reproductions of 
water-color drawings, and text by F. Hopkinson Smith, 
profusely illustrated with pen-and-ink sketches. A Holi- 
day volume. Folio, full gilt, $15.00. 

The Same. Popular Edition. Including some of the il- 
lustrations of the above. i6mo. 

A BOOK OF THE TILE CLUB. Containing 114 reproduc- 
tions of representative Paintings, Bas-Reliefs, Portraits, 
and Sketches by members of the Tile Club of New York, 
including 27 full-page phototypes. With Sketch of the 
Club, and account of one of its Meetings by F. Hopkin- 
son Smith and Edward Strahan. A Holiday volume. 
Folio, gilt top, $25.00. 

The Same. Edition de Luxe. Limited to 100 copies. 
With full-page illustrations on Japanese paper. Superbly 
bound in vellum. Folio, full gilt, $50.00. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

Boston and New York. 



WELL-WORN ROADS 



SPAIN, HOLLAND, AND ITALY 



TRAVELED BY A PAINTER IN SEARCH 
OF THE PICTURESQUE 







1l 



i », 



j steimp 



y 



F. HOPKINSON SMITH 



/ 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(£fce tf toerst&e $rej#, (£am&rtbQe 
1887 






CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction i 

The Church of San Pablo, Seville .... 4 

El Puerta del Vino. Alhambra (Granada) 9 

A Gypsy Dance near Granada 15 

Under Arrest in Cordova 28 

A Veranda in the Alcazaria 38 

In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam ... 46 

A Water-Logged Town in Holland .... 58 

Under a Balcony 62 

A Day with the Professor 66 

A Visit from the Doctor 7 1 

On the Riva, Venice 77 

A Summer's Day in Venice 87 

The Top of a Gondola 96 

Behind the Rialto 106 

Up a Belfry in Bavaria "3 




INTRODUCTION 

These sketches are the record of some 
idle days spent in rambling about odd 
places, and into quaint nooks, and along 
well-worn roads of travel. They contain 
no information of any value to anybody. 
They are absolutely bare of statistics, are 
entirely useless as a guide to travelers, and 
can be of no possible benefit to a student 
desirous of increasing his knowledge either 
of foreign architecture, mediaeval art, poli- 
tics, or any kindred subject. 

They are not arranged in any order, 
have no specific bearing one upon the other, 
and are, in short, the merest outline of what 
one may see and hear who keeps both his 
eyes and his ears wide open. 

They were written some months after 
the discomforts and annoyances of travel 



2 Introduction 

had passed out of mind, and when only the 
memory remained of the many happy 
hours spent under cool archways, and along 
canals, and up curious, twisted streets, and 
into dark, old, smoked churches. They, 
however, possess one quality, and that is 
truth. 

A painter has peculiar advantages over 
other less fortunate people. His sketch- 
book is a passport and his white umbrella a 
flag of truce in all lands under the sun, be 
it savage or civilized; an "open sesame," 
bringing good cheer and hospitality, and 
entitling the possessor to all the benefits 
of liberty, equality, and fraternity. 

I have been picked up on a roadside in 
Cuba by a Spanish grandee, who has driven 
me home in his volante to breakfast. I 
have been left in charge of the priceless 
relics and treasures of old Spanish churches 
hours at a time and alone. I have had my 
beer mug filled to the brim by mountain- 
eers in the Tyrolean Alps, and had a chair 
placed for me at the table of a Dutchman 
living near the Zuider Zee. All these cour- 
tesies and civilities being the result of only 
ten minutes' previous acquaintance, and 
simply because I was a painter. 



Introduction 3 

Truly "one touch of nature [with the 
brush] makes the whole world kin." 

If, therefore, by reason of my craft and 
its advantages, I can show you some things 
you may perhaps have overlooked in your 
own wanderings, I shall be more than sat- 
isfied. So if you will draw another easy 
chair up to my studio fire I will tell you as 
simply as I can something of the groups 
who looked over my shoulder while I 
worked, and who daily formed my circle 
of acquaintance ; merely hinting to you as 
delicately as possible that a traveler, even 
with an ordinary pair of eyes and ears, can 
get much nearer to the heart of a people in 
their cafes, streets, and markets than in 
their museums, galleries, and palaces, and 
reminding you at the same time of the old 
adage which claims that "a live gamin is 
better than a dead king," for all the prac- 
tical purposes of life. 

F. H. S. 

New York, September, 1886. 



THE CHURCH OF SAN PABLO, 
SEVILLE 

I had a queer adventure in 
this old Spanish church. I was 
a voluntary prisoner within its 
quiet walls for half a day. The 
intense heat of the morning had 
driven me out of the small plaza 
hear the fruit market, and into 
a narrow, crooked street which 
led to the open church door. 
The interior was filled with the 
fragrant incense of the mass, 
just closed, and the cool air and silence of 
the place were so grateful that I laid my 
" trap " softly down near a group of pil- 
lars, uncovered my head, and watched the 
kneeling figures praying at the feet of the 
Virgin. Two altar boys entered from a 
side door, snuffed out the long candles, and 
covered the altar with white cloths. One 
by one the kneeling penitents rose, bowed 
reverently, drew their mantillas closer, and 




The Church of San Pablo 5 

glided out into the sunlight. Soon the 
sacristan appeared, closed the great swing- 
ing-doors behind the last worshiper, and 
discovered me with my easel up. I had 
already blocked in one end of the confes- 
sional, over which hung poised in air a 
huge angel, holding a swinging-lamp. 

" Senor, it is not permitted to remain 
longer. It is eleven o'clock. At four yo"u 
can return again." 

Two pesetas performed a miracle. The 
sacristan was soon in the hot street with 
the money and the keys in his pocket, and 
I was locked up alone in the cool church 
with my easel and sketch. I continued 
painting. The hours wore on slowly. The 
light streamed in through the high win- 
dows, patterned the floor, crept up the 
altar steps, and illumined the head of the 
huge angel with a crown of prismatic color. 

The silence became intense, and was 
broken only by the muffled sound of a door 
closing in the cloister beyond. Suddenly 
a panel opened in the solid wall to my left, 
and a figure closely veiled and shrouded in 
black tottered in, supported by her duenna 
and an elderly woman. She staggered to 
the altar steps, and threw back her man- 



6 The Church of San Pablo 

tilla. She was richly dressed, deathly- 
pale, and her eyes red with weeping. With 
a cry of agony she lifted up her hands, and 
fell half swooning at the feet of the figure 
of the Virgin. 

" Mi adorada amiga ! " she sobbed, " they 
have taken you away. Mother of God, 
have mercy ! " The duenna raised her 
head and laid it in her lap. The mother 
sat silently by, smoothing her temples and 
fanning softly. Again she raised herself, 
and, winding her white arms around the 
Virgin, while her black hair streamed over 
her tear-stained face, she poured out her 
grief, until she sank back exhausted and 
motionless. This continued nearly an 
hour, — the sefiorita sobbing convulsively, 
and the two women kneeling beside her, 
waiting for the paroxysms to pass, until, 
utterly worn out, she was lifted and half 
carried across the aisle and through the 
open door. It closed gently and left no 
trace. 

I emerged from my shelter, gathered up 
my brushes, and continued work. The 
confessional box took definite shape, and 
the angel was kept in his proper place by 
many pats of color bestowed on the back- 



The Church of San Pablo 7 

ground around him. A few touches 
brought out the swinging-lamp and the or- 
gan-pipes against the light high up in the 
nave. But I could not paint. I pushed 
back my easel and began wandering about. 
I sat down by the altar steps, near where 
the senorita had thrown herself, and ex- 
amined carefully the poor cracked image 
of the Virgin, with the paint scaling off 
and crumbling under my touch, to which 
she had clung so desperately. I went on 
tiptoe to the altar. The old Spanish chairs 
on either side were covered with soiled 
linen covers ; underneath, huge brass nails 
of a Moorish pattern, and scarlet velvet, 
threadbare. The vessels, quaint in design, 
silvered on copper. The cloths, superb 
with delicate Salamanca embroidery in pale 
yellow and white. The lamp which hung 
in front, suspended from a chain lost in the 
gloom of the roof, burned a ruby light. 
Behind the altar, broken saints of wood and 
plaster, bits of candles, tapers, and the 
ashes of many censers. Behind this, a cir- 
cular stairway leading to the organ loft. 
Up this stairway, dust, and a lumber-room 
containing old chant-books bound in vel- 
lum, yellow and worm-eaten, with bronze 



8 The Church of San Pablo 

corners and heavy bindings torn and de- 
faced. Farther on, a small door, and 
then the organ. The floor was strewn 
with broken keys, twisted pipes and wire, 
and the great tubes were smashed in as if 
with the butt of a musket. I again closed 
the small door, and descended the stair- 
way. A key grated in a lock, the great 
door swung open, and let in the sunlight, 
the hot air, and the sacristan. 

Had I been disturbed ? Yes, the sefio- 
rita. He looked startled. 

Through which door ? Ah ! yes ; from 
the Archbishop's. He had heard about it. 
It was very sad. The poor senorita, and 
she so beautiful ! 

" But is there no hope ? " 

" No, mi amigo ; he was shot at day- 
light." 



EL PUERTA DEL VINO. ALHAMBRA 
(GRANADA) 

The legends say- 
that the Moorish kings 
stored their choicest 
wine in the cellars be- 
neath this curious old 
archway. It was blaz- 
ing away this morning 
at a white heat under 
a Spanish sun and 
against a china-blue 
sky, and it sheltered 
not the juice of the grape, but an aguador 
and two donkeys. All three were asleep, 
— the water-carrier on his back, and the 
patient, tired little beasts propped up 
against each other. 

They had climbed the long hill of the 
Alhambra very many times since sunrise, 
and the water-jars had been often filled that 
day, and as often emptied into thirsty vil- 
lagers in the plain below. They had re- 




w El Pueria del Vino 

freshed everybody but themselves. Now 
it was their turn. So they dozed away, and 
I continued painting. 

If their green jars had contained wine I 
should have had no use for it. No water- 
color painter does. But water, pure water, 
began to be valuable ; my bottle was empty, 
and the well some distance off. It was 
cruel to disturb them, but after all I am 
only human. "Agua? Si, seiior." The 
aguador sprang to his feet, the donkeys 
lazily opened their eyes, a simultaneous 
convulsive movement of long ears and 
short tails, and the procession moved down 
out into the glare, and halted outside of my 
umbrella. 

A glass wet and held high, glistening in 
the sunlight, a shower of diamond drops 
thrown in a circle, a gurgling sound from a 
cool jar, and, with the bow of an Hidalgo, 
the aguador handed me that most blessed 
of all drinks, — cool water in a hot land. 
I dropped a copper into his outstretched 
hand, and looked up. He was a tall, 
straight young fellow, swarthy, with high 
cheek-bones, and black, bead-like eyes ; a 
red silk handkerchief bound his head, and 
a broad sash encircled his waist. 



El Puerto, del Vino 1 1 

" You are not a Spaniard ? " I asked. 

His face flushed, and a smile of supreme 
contempt crept over it. 

" A Spaniard ? Caramba ! No, senor ! 
I am a gypsy ! Come." 

He caught me by the arm, and half 
dragged me to the low wall which over- 
hangs the plain. Below was the valley of 
the Vega and the city of Granada swim- 
ming in a gray dust. He pointed to a nar- 
row road far down the slope, skirted by the 
river Darro. 

" See you those dark holes in the hill- 
side ? That is my home." I made him a 
low bow. I had not only caught a gypsy, 
but a cave-dweller. 

I remembered instantly that this man's 
ancestors lived in these holes in the ground 
before Ibn-I-Ahmar began to build the 
Alhambra. I also remembered that the 
Moors had " met with some reverses ; " but 
here was this sunburnt gypsy living in a 
house eight hundred years old, and the 
house still in possession of his family ! I 
handed him a cigarette, and made room for 
him under my umbrella. 

His story was very simple. He had 
been a water-carrier for several years. In 



12 El Puerto, del Vino 

the summer time he earned two pesetas 
(about forty cents). The donkeys belonged 
to his father, who had half of his earnings. 
That left one peseta for himself and Pepita. 

Was Pepita his wife ? No, not yet, be- 
cause her mother had been a long time 
sick; but soon — perhaps by next Holy 
Week. 

He wished I knew Pepita. "Her waist 
was so " (making a circle of his two thumbs 
and his two forefingers), " her ankle was 
so " (one thumb and one forefinger), " and 
her foot so " (holding up his little finger). 

Pepita was as good as she was pretty. 
Perhaps she would come up to the well to- 
day, for she was at mass when he left that 
morning. He would go to the well and 
look for her. 

He was gone a long time, and but for 
the dozing donkeys broiling in the sun I 
should have given him up. 

Suddenly four long ears pointed forward, 
and two stumpy tails veered like weather- 
vanes. Through the archway came my 
aguador and the daintiest of little gypsy 
maidens. She wore a white kerchief tied 
under her chin, great hoops of gold in her 
ears, strings of blue beads around her neck 



El Puerto, del Vino 13 

and wrists, over her shoulders a yellow 
scarf, and on her feet tiny black slippers 
with red heels. Shading her eyes with her 
fan she gave me a timid courtesy, and stood 
at one side, resting her hand on her lover's 
shoulder. She watched every movement 
of my brush, and laughed heartily when a 
few strokes indicated the donkeys. 

But it was growing late. Would the 
most illustrious painter have any more 
water ? Would he share the grapes Pepita 
had brought ? Yes, with pleasure ; but 
Pepita should have five pesetas. 

Shall I tell you what happened as I 
placed the coins in her hands ? 

" Ah, senor ! Bueno ! bueno ! Mateo, 
see ! " she said, holding up the money and 
seizing my hand, her eyes filling with tears. 
Before I was aware she had kissed it. 

The aguador leaned forward and whis- 
pered, " You know her mother is very 
sick." 

Then he fumbled about between the don- 
keys, and piled both panniers and all the 
jars on top of the uglier and sleepier of the 
two, and the dainty little sweetheart was 
lifted on the other. Then I watched them 
through the archway and down the steep 



1 4 El Puerto, del Vino 

hill, until they were lost amid the pome- 
granates. 

I held up the back of my hand. Yes, 
there was no mistake ; she had kissed it. 
It was a pity that she — but then, of course, 
I was only a stray painter. I was not an 
aguador, descendant of a family eight hun- 
dred years old, a landed proprietor, with a 
cash capital of five pesetas, and a half in- 
terest in a water-route and two donkeys ! 

After all, are the good things of this 
world so unequally divided ? 

Ouien sabe ? 



A GYPSY DANCE NEAR GRANADA 




Mateo, the 
aguador, and 
I became 
great friends. 
His cheery, 
bright face, 
and his wel- 
come " Bue- 
n o s d i a s, 
seiior," were 
very grateful to me so many miles away 
from home. He and the donkeys stumbled 
in upon me at all hours, and in all parts of 
the Alhambra grounds; and if he did not 
quickly catch sight of my white umbrella, 
he would leave his little beasts in the road 
and go in search of me. 

This afternoon I heard his voice far down 
the hill, and in a few moments more he 
came singing through the small entrance 
gate, and, bursting into a laugh, began to 
tell me the latest news in the city below. 



1 6 A Gypsy Dance near Granada 

He was especially delighted over the 
padre who sold the chairs out of the sacristy 
to the Englishman, and who did not give 
all the money to the bishop. This I knew 
to be true, for I had a hand in a similar 
transaction myself, — the chair I write in 
being part of the villainy. 

He had a sad story to tell about Sant- 
iago, who lived at the Great Gate, and 
whose brother, the matador, had been hurt 
in the bull-fight. 

Then he told me about the actor from 
Madrid, who lived in one of the old red 
towers of the Alhambra, and who came 
every summer with a new wife ; about the 
mass on Sunday last, the procession of 
Holy Week; and the great Spaniard who 
lived in Paris, and who visited his olive farm 
only once in five years, and who arrived 
yesterday. Then, finally, about Pepita. I 
began to notice that all these talks ended 
in Pepita. To-day he was in fine spirits. 
He had already earned three pesetas, and 
it was not yet sundown. 

It was a " Fiesta day," and the churches 
and streets were full, and the people very 
thirsty. To-night he and Pepita would go 
to the dance. 



A Gypsy Dance near Granada iy 

Up to this time I listened to his talk 
without ever looking up from my work. I 
was struggling with the Moorish arch over 
the entrance of the Hall of the Ambas- 
sadors, and had my hands full, but here I 
laid down my palette. 

" What dance, Mateo ? ; ' 

" The dance of the gypsies, senor, at the 
Posada del Albaycin. La Tonta would 
dance, and the king of the gypsies would 
bring his great guitar. Would the illus- 
trious painter accompany them ? " 

That being the one particular thing the 
illustrious painter most desired to see in all 
Granada, I at once accepted, hurried up 
my work, and arranged to meet them at 
the Great Gate of Charles V. Accordingly 
about an hour after sundown I gave my 
watch and wallet to the landlord, took my 
umbrella-staff, and strolled down the hill. 

Mateo awaited me in the shadow of the 
arch of the gate, carrying a lantern. Pepita 
joined us farther down in the city; she 
had stopped on her way up to restring her 
guitar. In a few moments more we all 
halted at the door of a wine shop in the 
rear of the church. This was the Posada 
del Albaycin. A dim lamp fastened 



1 8 A Gypsy Dance near Granada 

against the wall revealed a crowd of agua- 
dores, fruit-sellers, and garlic-venders, to- 
gether with a motley crew of Spaniards and 
gypsies of both sexes crowding about the 
entrance. 

As I passed in, I heard overhead the 
click of the castanets and the low thrum- 
ming of the guitars. Ascending the steps, 
I found myself in a long room on the sec- 
ond floor, simply furnished with a row of 
chairs on either side, and lighted by a num- 
ber of lamps suspended on brackets fas- 
tened to the wall. At one end was a raised 
platform covered with a carpet. Seated 
upon this platform was a man of middle 
age, very tall and broadly built, with the 
features and expression of an American 
Indian. Compared in size to the gypsies 
about him, he was a giant. He was tun- 
ing an enormous guitar, — a very grand- 
father of guitars — having all the strings 
which ordinary instruments of its class pos- 
sess, and an extra string fastened on an 
outrigger. The back of this curious instru- 
ment was covered with sheet-brass. 

As we entered he left his chair, placed 
the guitar against the wall, greeted Mateo 
and Pepita, and, having spoken in an un- 



A Gypsy Dance near Granada ig 

dertone to the aguaclor, raised his wide 
Spanish hat and saluted me gracefully. 

Pepita occupied one of the vacant seats 
on the platform, and rested her instrument 
gently against her knee, while her lover 
and I watched the groups as they crowded 
up the narrow stairway and filled the floor 
space. 

He pointed out all the celebrities. The 
tall man with the overgrown guitar was 
known as the king of the gypsies. The 
dance to-night was for his benefit. La 
Tonta was his daughter, and the best dan- 
cer in Spain. She did not dance often. 
He was sure I would not be disappointed. 
But the dance was about to begin, and we 
must keep silence. 

The king bowed to the audience, struck 
his guitar with the flat of his hand, swept 
all the strings simultaneously, twirled it in 
the air, kissed it, took his seat with a great 
flourish, and began the melody. Im- 
mediately, at the far end of the room, a 
young gypsy arose, tightened his belt, 
clapped his hands, and began a slow move- 
ment with his feet, the dancers and au- 
dience keeping time with their castanets 
and the palms of their hands. 



20 A Gypsy Dance near Granada 

Then a gypsy girl took the floor and 
danced a " Bolero." Then came more 
gypsies in tight trousers and loose jackets, 
until the hour arrived for the sensation of 
the evening. 

A great clapping announced La Tonta 
as she entered quickly from a side door, 
and stood facing the mirror. To my sur- 
prise she was a tall, thin, ungraceful, badly- 
formed, and slattern-looking gypsy woman, 
by no means young. She was attired in 
a long yellow calico gown hanging loosely 
about her, much the worse for wear and 
not overclean. She wore black kid slippers 
and white cotton stockings. Her skin 
was dark like all women of her race, and 
her eyes large and luminous. Her mass 
of jet-black hair was caught in a twist be- 
hind, the whole decorated with blossoms 
of the tuberose. Taken as a whole, she 
was the last woman in all Spain you would 
have picked out as a star danseuse. 

I looked at Mateo in surprise, but his 
expression was too earnest and his admi- 
ration too sincere. He evidently did not 
agree with me in my estimate of La Tonta. 
He laid his hand upon my knee, and said, 
"Wait!" 



A Gypsy Dance near Granada 21 

At this instant a stout gypsy in his shirt 
sleeves, who had been beating time with 
his cane, and who appeared to be master 
of ceremonies, cleared the floor, pressing 
everybody back against the wall. 

La Tonta stood surveying herself in the 
mirror which hung over the mantel. She 
nodded to Mateo, and began rolling up her 
soiled calico sleeves quite to her shoulders, 
revealing a thin, although well-proportioned 
and not altogether unattractive pair of 
arms. She then stripped the cheap tinsel 
bracelets from her wrists, and hid them in 
her bosom. 

As the music increased in volume, she 
shut her eyes and stretched out her long 
arms as a panther sometimes does ; then 
lifted them above her head, and instantly 
they fell into the rhythm of the music. 
Pier feet now began to move, and a pecul- 
iar swaying motion started as if from her 
heels, ran up through her limbs, back, and 
neck, undulated through her long arms, 
and lost itself in her finger-tips. 

This was repeated again and again, each 
movement increasing in intensity ; her 
eyes flashing with a light rare even in a 
Spanish gypsy. She stamped her feet, 



22 A Gypsy Dance near Granada 

swayed her body backward and forward, 
almost touched the floor with her hair, and 
then suddenly rushed forward, appealing 
to you with her outstretched arms. 

The music seemed to possess her like a 
spell. She became grace itself, her move- 
ments sylph-like — and, if you will believe 
it, positively beautiful. As the music quick- 
ened, her gestures became more violent ; 
as it died away, you could hardly believe 
she moved — and she did not, except the 
slight shuffling of her feet, which kept up 
the spell within her. 

The effect on the audience was startling. 
Men rose to their feet, bending forward and 
watching her every motion. The women 
clapped their hands, encouraging her with 
cries of " Olle ! olle ! Bravo, La Tonta ! " 

Suddenly the music ceased, and La 
Tonta stood perfectly still. Her eyes 
opened, her arms fell limp beside her, her 
back straightened, and she awoke as if 
from a trance. Giving a quick glance 
around, she gathered her skirts in her 
hand, and limped rather than walked 
through the hall and out into the side room, 
if anything more awkward than when she 
had entered. 



A Gypsy Dance near Granada 23 

The applause was long-continued and 
genuine. I certainly did my share of it. 
The look of supreme satisfaction which 
came over the face of my aguador as he 
watched my admiration was not the least 
part of my enjoyment. 

But the dance was over, and we all 
crowded to the street. Mateo had greet- 
ings for his friends, and Pepita was sur- 
rounded by half a dozen girls of her own 
age, who had kind things to say about her 
part of the performance. In a moment I 
was singled out and besieged by a bevy of 
dark-eyed gypsies, who had heard, no 
doubt, of Pepita's good fortune, and who, if 
they did not have sick mothers at home, 
had many other interests which were equally 
pressing. 

" Una peseta, senor," called out half a 
dozen at once. I had a few small coins 
left in my sketching-coat, but they were 
soon distributed. " Por me, sefior," said a 
wicked-looking gypsy girl. My money 
being all gone, and the bulk of my prop- 
erty being at that moment in the hands of 
my landlord, I did the next best thing pos- 
sible. I gave her a red rose from my but- 
tonhole with my best bow. Just here my 



24 A Gypsy Dance near Granada 

trouble began. She received it with a cold 
smile, and turned on her heel. In less time 
thereafter than I can tell it, a young fellow 
broke through the group and confronted 
me, held the rose in his hand, poured out a 
torrent of abuse, and ground it into the 
earth with his heel. 

Mateo sprang forward and caught him 
by the throat, and for a moment it looked 
as if there was going to be as lively a scene 
as I had ever experienced. But at this in- 
stant the powerful form of the king ap- 
peared in the doorway, and, after mutual 
explanations on all sides, the young fellow 
seemed satisfied that no indignity had been 
offered his sweetheart, and that the illus- 
trious painter had only intended a compli- 
ment especially prized by the sefioritas in 
his own country. 

With this we separated, Mateo and Pe- 
pita going with me as far as the Great Gate, 
the groups scattering down the crooked 
streets, and I to wander about the groves 
of the.Alhambra before going to bed. 

It was a lovely night, and I wanted once 
more to see the Garden of Lindaraja with 
its deep shadows. A few quick steps 
brought me beyond the archway of the 



A Gypsy Dance near Granada 25 

Gate of Justice, and near the fountains of 
the Court of Lions. 

It was nearly midnight. The Moorish 
arches, supported on their slender marble 
columns, wore the color of a tea-rose, as 
they stood bathed in the moonlight. There 
was no sound but the gurgling of the water 
running through the channels in the mar- 
ble at my feet, and the regular plash of the 
fountain. 

I began thinking about these gypsies — 
their history, the peculiarities of their race, 
the stories of their villainy and treachery, 
of their vindictiveness, of their curious 
homes, and then of this girl whom the mu- 
sic had transformed into a goddess. 

My reverie was broken by the sound of 
a footstep, and rising from my seat I looked 
behind me into the mass of shadow. It 
ceased, and I again took my seat; Some 
visitor, I thought, who would also see the 
Alhambra by moonlight. But I felt un- 
comfortable. The incident of the rose was, 
to say the least, unpleasant. I began real- 
izing the lateness of the hour, and turned 
my steps back to my lodgings. 

On the way home, finding the bucket of 
the well of the Moors at the top and full, I 



26 A Gypsy Dance near Granada 

had a cool drink. Then I passed down 
through the trees and into the narrow ra- 
vine which leads through the gate, and so 
on under the archway and out into the 
moonlight beyond its black shadow. 

At that instant I became conscious that 
some one was following me. I could hear 
the rapid footfall timed to keep pace with 
my own. I grasped my umbrella-staff, and 
slid it along my hand until I could feel the 
iron spike. As I reached the last outer 
step of the gate, a man wearing a gypsy's 
cloak ran rapidly through the shadow be- 
hind and toward me. I turned quickly, 
and recognized the young gypsy who had 
so pointedly destroyed my rose under his 
boot heel. 

At the same instant another figure 
glided from the doorway to my side, and 
said in a low voice, " Never fear, caballero; 
it is Mateo. I am watching the cut-throat." 

The gypsy started back, sprang over the 
low wall, and disappeared in the darkness. 
If I had ever been glad to see Mateo it was 
at that moment. He was out of breath — 
and temper. For an instant he was unde- 
cided whether he would go home with me 
or go after the gentleman with the destruc- 



A Gypsy Dance near Granada 2j 

tive heel. I finally persuaded him that he 
possibly might do both, but he should leave 
me at my lodgings first. 

On our way down the hill Mateo told me 
his end of the story. After leaving Pepita 
for the night, and crossing the street which 
leads to the Great Gate, he had noticed this 
fellow skulking along, and watched him 
turn into the Alhambra grounds. Know- 
ing that the gypsy could not reach his 
home by that route, and remembering our 
recent difficulty, he had dogged his foot- 
steps into and through the Alhambra, and 
had caught up with him as I was drinking 
at the well. Believing that I would go out 
by the Gate of Justice, he had taken the 
short cut down the hill, and waited for me 
under the archway, and I knew the rest. 

I reached my lodgings and rapped up 
the sleepy porter, and bade good-night to 
my friend the aguador. I hope my addi- 
tions to Pepita's dowry cured the mother 
and hastened the wedding. 




UNDER ARREST IN CORDOVA 

In Spain evo- 
lution has pro- 
duced the tartana 
from the old- 
fashioned char- 
coal cart. Dur- 
ing the process the cart lost two of its 
wheels and the tartana gained two long 
seats, both chintz covered and made com- 
fortable with pew cushions, besides two 
pairs of lace curtains looped back fore and 
aft, and a brief flight of steps farthest from 
the mule serving as a sort of Jacob's lad- 
der for ascending and descending senoritas. 
I was standing in the shadow of one of 
the gates of the great Mosque at Cordova 
when I saw for the first time a tartana. 

It took possession of me, and in five 
minutes I had returned the compliment. 

It came around the corner with a rush, 
smothered in a cloud of white dust, in the 
centre of which I could see the red tassels 



Under Arrest in Cordova 29 

of the mule and the outstretched arm of 
the driver seated on the shaft and wielding 
a whip of convincing length. Then it 
whirled around before me, backed to the 
sidewalk, and unloaded half a dozen pairs 
of black eyes, some mantillas, fans, and red- 
heeled slippers. 

As the fair senoritas were going to mass 
and I sketching, we separated at once. 

A crack of the whip, a plunge from the 
convinced mule, a dash along a hot, dusty 
road, bounded by a hedge of prickly pears, 
and we all stopped at an old Moorish arch, 
now, as in olden times, one of the city's 
gates. 

I stopped for two reasons. First, be- 
cause the custom-house officer insisted upon 
it ; and second, because the gate loomed 
up in such majestic symmetry against the 
deep blue sky that I determined to paint it 
at once, and so ordered the driver to un- 
limber, and prepared for action. 

This meant that the mule was unhar- 
nessed and tethered in a shady spot, and 
that I was anchored out by myself in the 
tartana in the middle of the road, and in 
the immediate centre of all the traffic of 
the city's gate. 



jo Under Arrest in Cordova 

Any other position, however, would have 
been useless, for it was the only spot from 
which I could see through the arch and 
into the city's streets beyond. 

Considering that I and my tartana were 
public nuisances, the good-nature and for- 
bearance of the populace were remarkable. 
Every now and then a great string of mules 
would come to a standstill off my weather 
bow, the muleteer would slide down from 
his perch, step forward, peer into my shaded 
retreat, catch sight of the easel, apologize 
for disturbing the painter, and then proceed 
to disentangle his string of quadrupeds as 
if it was a matter of course, and part of his 
daily routine. 

Even the custom-house officers exacting 
tithes from the hucksters bringing their 
produce to the city's market, and who at 
first regarded me with suspicion, became 
courteous and lent a helping hand in 
straightening out the continuous proces- 
sion of donkeys, market carts, wagons, and 
teams crossing the cool shadow of the arch. 

The crowd about my muleless tartana 
were equally considerate. They stood for 
hours patient and silent, filled my water- 
bottle, brought me coffee, and one old San- 



Under Arrest in Cordova 31 

cho Panza of a farmer even handed me up 
a great bunch of white grapes. All they 
wanted in return was a view of the sketch. 
This I paid, holding it up regularly for their 
inspection every half hour. 

While this busy scene occupied the road- 
way under the gate, another of quite a dif- 
ferent character was taking place in the 
grated rooms above it. 

I had noticed on my arrival a thinly con- 
structed military gentleman all sword and 
moustache, who watched me from a win- 
dow, and who seemed to take an especial 
interest in my movements. I now caught 
sight of him at an upper window gesticulat- 
ing wildly and surrounded by a group of 
other military gentlemen, all apparently ab- 
sorbed in me, my tartana, and my circle of 
art students. Then they disappeared, and 
I gave the incident no further thought. 

Half an hour later the vista of the street 
seen through the gate, and consequently 
the central point of my sketch, was ob- 
structed by a mass of people crowding 
about the great swinging doors, and from 
it marched a file of soldiers under com- 
mand of an officer who began a series of 
military movements of great simplicity. 



$2 Under Arrest in Cordova 

First, they marched up the road and left 
two men. Then they marched back and 
left two more. Then they deployed in 
front and stationed one at each wheel of 
my tartan a, and finally the officer stepped 
forward, drew his sword, and, looking me 
searchingly in the face, made this start- 
ling announcement : — 

" Sefior, the general in command has 
ordered your instant arrest. You will 
accompany me to the prison." 

As soon as I recovered my breath I came 
down Jacob's ladder and asked politely for 
an explanation. The only reply was a crisp 
order closing the files, followed by a for- 
ward march which swept me down the 
dusty road under the gate, through an iron- 
barred door, up a broad flight of stone 
steps leading up one side of the gate-way, 
and into a room on the second floor dimly 
lighted by small grated windows. 

As soon as my eyes, dazzled by the glare 
of the sunlight, became accustomed to the 
semi-darkness, I discovered an officer with 
snow-white hair and moustache, seated at 
a desk and poring over a mass of papers. 
He was in full uniform, was half covered 
with medals, and attended by a secretary. 



Under Arrest in Cordova 33 

He arose, perforated me with his eye, 
listened to the officer's statement, and 
demanded my age, name, and occupation. 
To these questions I gave civil answers, 
which the secretary recorded. 

Then he faced me sternly and said, 
" What are you doing in Cordova ? " 

" A little of everything, your excellency. 
I prowl about the streets, lounge in the 
cafes, go to mass, make love to the senori- 
tas, attend the bull-fight, and " — 

" And make drawings ? " 

" I admit it, your excellency." 

" What do you do with these drawings, 
senor pintor ? " 

" Sell them, your excellency — ■ when I 
can." 

" You are a Frenchman ? " 

" No, I am an American." 

" Your passport." 

" I have none." 

That settled it. Seizing a pen, he in- 
dorsed a paper handed him by his secre- 
tary, passed it to the officer, and said, in a 
gruff voice, " Conduct this man to the Gov- 
ernor." 

More closing in of files, more drawn 
sword, more forward march, and down the 



$4 Under Arrest in Cordova 

stone stairs we all tramped, out into the 
glare of the sunlight, through the excited, 
sympathetic, and curious mob, and then up 
on the other side of the gate, and up a pre- 
cisely similar staircase, and into a precisely 
similar semi-dark room. More desk, more 
secretary, — two this time, — and more ex- 
cellency, but here the similarity ends. 

At a square table covered with books 
and papers was seated a young officer, 
scarcely twenty years of age, also in full 
uniform, but without the numismatic collec- 
tion decorating his chest. He was occu- 
pied in rolling a cigarette. 

The only sign he gave of our presence 
was a glance at the squad and a slight nod 
to the officer, who saluted him with marked 
deference. As for myself, I do not think 
I came within his range. 

The cigarette complete, he struck a light, 
blew a cloud of smoke from his nostrils, 
read the much-indorsed paper, reached for 
a pen, and was about to countersign it 
when I stepped forward. 

" Will your highness inform me why I 
am under arrest ? " 

" Certainly ; you have been detected in 
making plans of this prison, which is a mil- 



Under Arrest in Cordova 35 

itary post of Spain. In time of war this is 
punished with death ; in time of peace, by- 
imprisonment." 

All this, you know, with as much ease 
and grace of manner as if he had invited 
me to luncheon, and was merely giving di- 
rections about the temperature of the bur- 
gundy ! 

" But I am not a spy. I am simply an 
American painter traveling through Spain, 
sketching as I go, and painting whatever 
pleases my fancy. Last week it was the 
awnings over the street of the Sierpes in 
Seville, yesterday the donkeys dozing in 
the sun at the gate of the Mosque, and to- 
day this old Moorish arch, so typical of 
Spain's great history." 

He threw away his cigarette, lost his 
languid air, took up the paper, re-read it 
carefully to the end, and said : — 

"But you have no passport." 

" You are mistaken." 

" Produce it." 

I ran my hand into my blouse and 
handed him my pocket sketch-book. 

He opened it, stopped at the first page, 
turned the others slowly, backed uncon- 
sciously into his chair, sat down, covered 



5<5 Under Arrest in Cordova 

his face with a smile, broke into a laugh, 
ordered the officer to follow him, and dis- 
appeared through a door. 

I occupied myself examining the brass 
numbers on the cartridge - boxes of the 
squad, and wondering what size handcuffs 
I wore. Before I had settled it, the officer 
returned, saluted me, escorted me through 
the door, leaving the squad behind, and led 
me into a small room luxuriously furnished. 
The young Governor came forward and 
held out his hand. 

" Senor, you are free. I have seen your 
picture. It is admirable. I regret the mis- 
take. The officer will conduct you to your 
tartana and detail a file of men who will 
prevent your being disturbed until you fin- 
ish. Adios." 

It was a noble and goodly sight to see 
that awkward squad mount guard in the 
dust and heat ! It was so frightfully hot 
out there in the road, and so delightfully 
cool inside the tartana. It was another 
exhilarating exhibition to watch the crowd 
and see them tortured by hopeless curiosity 
to understand the situation. It was still 
an additional delightful spectacle to con- 
template the driver, who had shrunk into 



Under Arrest in Cordova 37 

a mere ghost of himself when the arrest 
was made, and who was now swelling with 
the importance of the result. 

An hour later the sketch was finished, 
the squad dismissed, the officer, who turned 
out to be a charming fellow, was seated 
beside me ; the mule, the driver, and the 
tartana became once more a compact or- 
ganization, and we rattled back through 
the blinding dust, and stopped at a cafe of 
the officer's choosing. 

Over the cognac I mustered up courage 
to ask him this question : — 

" If you will permit me, sefior capitan, 
who is the young Governor ? " 

" Do you not know ? " 

I expressed my ignorance. 

" The Governor, caballero, is the cousin 
of the King." 




A VERANDA IN THE ALCAZARIA 

To really 
understand 
and appreci- 
ate Spanish 
life you must 
live in the 
streets. Not 
lounge 
through 
them, but sit 
down somewhere and keep still long 
enough for the ants to crawl over you, and 
so contemplate the people at your leisure. 
If you are a painter you will have every 
facility given you. The balconies over 
your head will be full of senoritas fanning 
lazily and peering at you through the iron 
gratings ; the barber across the way will 
lay aside his half-moon basin and cross over 
to your side of the street and chat with you 
about the bull-fight of yesterday and the 
fiesta to-morrow, and give you all the scan- 



A Veranda in the Alca^aria jg 

dal of the neighborhood before noon. The 
sombrerero, whose awnings are hung with 
great strings of black hats of all shapes and 
sizes, will leave his shop and watch you by 
the hour ; and the fat, good-natured priest 
will stand quietly at your elbow and en- 
courage you with such appreciative criti- 
cisms as " Muybien." " Bonita, senor." 
" Bonisima." 

If you keep your eyes about you, you will 
catch Figaro casting furtive glances at a 
shaded window above you, and later on a 
scrap of paper will come fluttering down at 
your feet, which the quick-witted barber 
covers with his foot, slyly picks up, and af- 
terwards reads and kisses behind the half- 
closed curtains of his shop. So much of 
this sort of thing will go on during the 
day that you wonder what the night may 
bring forth. 

The Alcazaria in Seville, upon the broad 
flags of which I spent the greater part of 
three days, is just such a street. It is a nar- 
row, winding, crooked thoroughfare, shaded 
by great awnings stretched between the 
overhanging roofs, and filled with balconies 
holding great tropical plants, strings of 
black hats, festoons of gay colored stuffs, 



40 A Veranda in the Alca^aria 

sly peeping senoritas, fruit sellers, agua- 
dores, donkeys, beggars, and the thousand 
and one things that make up Spanish 
life. 

Before I finished my picture I had be- 
come quite an old settler, and knew what 
time the doctor came in, and who was sick 
over the way, and the name of the boy with 
the crutch, and the picador who lived in 
the rear and who strutted about on the 
flagging in his buckskin leggings, padded 
with steel springs, on the day of the bull- 
fight, and the story about the sad-faced 
girl in the window over the wine shop, 
whose lover was in prison. 

But of course one cannot know a street 
at one sitting. The Alcazaria, on the 
morning of the first day, was to me only a 
Spanish street ; on the morning of the sec- 
ond day I began to realize that it contained 
a window over my shoulder opening on a 
small veranda half hidden in flowers and 
palms ; and on the morning of the third 
day I knew just the hour at which its oc- 
cupant returned from mass, the shape of 
her head and mantilla, and could recognize 
her duenna at sight. 

This charming Spanish beauty greatly 



A Veranda in the Alcazar ia 41 

interested me. If I accidentally caught 
her eye through the leaves and flowers, she 
would drop her lashes so quickly, and with 
such a half frightened, timid look, that I 
immediately looked the other way for full 
five minutes in lieu of an apology ; and I 
must confess that after studying her move- 
ments for three days I should "as soon have 
thought of kissing my hand to the Mother 
Superior of the convent as to this modest 
little maiden. I must also confess that no 
other sefiorita led me to any such conclu- 
sion in any of the other balconies about 
me. 

On the afternoon of the third day I be- 
gan final preparations for my departure, 
and as everybody wanted to see the picture, 
it was displayed in the shop of the barber 
because he had a good light. Then I sent 
his small boy for my big umbrella and for 
a large, unused canvas which I had stored 
in the wine shop at the corner, and which, 
with my smaller traps, he agreed to take to 
my lodgings ; and then there was a gen- 
eral hand-shaking and some slight waving 
of white hands and handkerchiefs from the 
balconies over the way, in which my timid 
sefiorita did not join ; and so, lighting my 



42 A Veranda in the Alca^aria 

cigarette, I made my adios and strolled 
down the street to the church. 

It was the hour for vespers, and the 
streets were filling rapidly with penitents 
on their way to prayers. With no definite 
object in view except to see the people and 
watch their movements, and with that 
sense of relief which comes over one after 
his day's work is done, I mingled in the 
throng and passed between the great swing- 
ing doors and into the wide incense-laden 
interior, and sat down near the door to 
watch the service. The dim light sifted in 
through the stained-glass windows and 
rested on the clouds of incense swung from 
the censers. Every now and then I heard 
the tinkling of the altar-bell, and the deep 
tones of the organ. Around me were the 
bowed heads of the penitents, silently tell- 
ing their beads, and next me the upturned 
face and streaming eyes of a grief-stricken 
woman, whispering her sorrow to the Vir- 
gin. To the left of where I kneeled was a 
small chapel, and, dividing me from this, 
an iron grating of delicate workmanship, 
behind which were grouped a number of 
people praying before a picture of the 
Christ. Suddenly another figure came in, 



A Veranda in the Alca^aria 43 

kneeled, and prayed silently. It was my 
timid senorita, and before I was through 
wondering how she could come so quickly, 
a young priest entered and knelt imme- 
diately behind her. He was the same I 
had seen in the Alcazaria glancing at her 
window as he passed. 

Fearing that I should frighten her, as I 
had often done before, I moved a few steps 
away ; but she was so lovely and Madonna- 
like with her mantilla shading her eyes 
and her fan fluttering slowly like a butter- 
fly, — -now poising, now balancing, then 
waving and settling, — that I instinctively 
sought for my sketch-book to catch an 
outline of her pose, feeling assured that I 
should not be discovered. Before I had 
half finished she arose, slowly passed the 
priest, half covered him with her mantilla, 
and quick as thought slipped a white en- 
velope under his prayer-book ! 

It was done so neatly and quickly and 
with such self-possession that it was some 
time before I recovered my equilibrium. 
Had I made any mistake ? Could it pos- 
sibly be the same demure, modest, shy 
senorita of the veranda, or was it not some 
one resembling her ? All these Spanish 



44 A Veranda in the Alca\aria 

beauties have black eyes, I thought, carry 
the colors of their favorite matador on 
their fans, and look alike. Perhaps, after 
all, I was mistaken. 

I determined to find out. 

Before she had reached the outer step 
of the church I had overtaken her, but her 
mantilla was too closely drawn for me to 
see her face. The duenna, however, was un- 
mistakable, for she wore great silver hoops 
in her ears and an enormously high comb, 
and once seen was not easily forgotten ; but 
to be quite sure, I followed along until she 
entered the Alcazaria, and so on to the step 
of her house. If she touched the old Moor- 
ish knocker and rapped, it would end it. 

She lingered for a few minutes at the 
iron gate, chatted with her duenna, watched 
me cross the street, kept her eyes upon me 
with her old saintly look, patted her attend- 
ant on the back, gently closed the gate 
upon the good woman, leaving her on the 
inside, then bent her own pretty head, 
pushed back her mantilla, showing her 
white throat, and flashing upon me from 
the corner of her eye the most coquettish, 
daring, and mischievous of glances, touched 
her finger-tips to her lips, and vanished ! 



A Veranda in the Alca^aria 45 

I had made no mistake except in human 
nature. Surely Murillo must have gone to 
Italy for his Madonnas. They were not in 
Seville, if the times have not changed. 

I crossed over and had a parting chat 
with the barber. What about the sefiorita 
opposite who had just entered her gate? 
" Ah, sefior ! She is most lovely. She is 
called The Pious ; but you need not look 
that way. She is the betrothed of the 
olive merchant who lives at San Juan, and 
who visits her every Sunday. The wed- 
ding takes place next month." 

Figaro believed it. I could see it in his 
face. So, perhaps, did the olive merchant. 

I did not. 




IN AND OUT OF A CAB IN AMSTER- 
DAM 

It is rain- 
ing this morn- 
ing in Am- 
sterdam. It 
is a way it has 
in Holland. 
The old set- 
tlers do not 
seem to mind it, but I am only a few days 
from the land of the orange and the olive, 
and, although these wet, silvery grays and 
fresh greens are full of "quality," I long 
for the deep blue skies and clear-cut 
shadows of sunny Spain. On this partic- 
ular morning I am in a cab and in search 
of a certain fish-market, and cabby is fol- 
lowing the directions given him by a very 
round porter with a very flat cap and a 
deep bass voice. 

There is nothing so comfortable as a cab 
to paint in if you only know how to utilize 



In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 47 

its resources. For me, long practice has 
brought it to a fine art. * First, I have 
cabby take out the horse. This prevents 
his shaking me when he changes his tired 
leg. He is generally a spiral-spring-fed 
beast, and enjoys the relief. Then I take 
out the cushions. This keeps them dry. 
Then I close the back and off-side curtains, 
so as to concentrate the light, prop my 
easel up against the front seat, spread my 
palette and brushes on the bare wooden 
one, hang my rubber water-bottle up to the 
arm rest, and begin work. (I have even 
discovered in the bottom of certain cabs 
such luxuries as knot or auger holes 
through which to pour my waste water.) 
I then pass the umbrella-staff to cabby, 
calling particular attention to the iron 
spike, and explain howl useful it may be- 
come in removing the inquisitive small 
boy from the hind wheel. One lesson and 
two boys makes a cabby an expert. This 
is why I am in a cab and am driving down 
the Keizersgraacht on this very wet morn- 
ing in Amsterdam. 

Before the fat porter's directions could 
be fully carried out, however, I caught 
sight of an old bridge spanning a canal 



48 In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 

which pleased me greatly, and before my 
friend on the box could realize the con- 
sequences I had his horse out and tied to a 
wharf post, and the interior of his cab 
transformed into a studio. 

In five minutes I discovered that a cab- 
less horse and a horseless cab presided over 
by a cabby armed with an umbrella-staff 
was not an every-day sight in Amsterdam. 
I had camped on the stone quay some dis- 
tance from the street and out of every- 
body's way. I congratulated myself on 
my location, and felt sure I would not be 
disturbed. On my left was the canal 
crowded with market-boats laden with gar- 
den-truck ; on my right, the narrow street 
choked with the traffic of the city. 

Suddenly the business of Amsterdam 
ceased. Everybody on the large boats 
scrambled into smaller ones and sculled for 
shore. Everybody in the street simulta- 
neously jumped from cart, wagon, and door- 
step, and in twenty seconds I was over- 
whelmed by a surging throng, who swarmed 
about my four-wheeler and blocked up my 
only window with anxious, inquiring faces. 

I had been in a crowd like this before, 
and knew exactly what to do. Sphynx-like 



In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 49 

silence and immobility of face are impera- 
tive. If you neither speak nor smile, the 
mob imbibes a kind of respect for you 
amounting almost to awe. Those nearest 
you, who can see a little and want to see 
more, unconsciously become your cham- 
pions, and expostulate with those who can- 
not see anything, cautioning them against 
shaking the painter and obstructing his 
view. 

This crowd was no exception to the gen- 
eral rule. I noticed, however, one pecul- 
iarity. As each Amsterdammer reached 
my window he would gaze silently at my 
canvas and then say, "Ah, teekenmees- 
ter." Soon the word went around and 
reached the belated citizens rushing up, 
who stopped and appeared satisfied, as they 
all exclaimed, "Ah, teekenmeester." 

At last commerce resumed her sway. 
The street disentangled itself. The mar- 
ket in cabbages again became active, and 
I was left comparatively alone, always ex- 
cepting the small boy. The variety here 
was singularly irritating. They mounted 
the roof, blocked up the windows, clam- 
bered up on the front seat, until cabby be- 
came sufficiently conversant with the use 



*jo In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 

of the business end of my umbrella-staff, 
after which they kept themselves at a re- 
spectful distance. 

Finally a calm settled down over every- 
thing. The rain fell gently and contin- 
uously. The spiral-spring beast rested 
himself on alternate legs, and the boys con- 
templated me from a distance. Cabby 
leaned in the off window and became use- 
ful as a cup holder, and I was rapidly finish- 
ing my first sketch in Holland when the 
light was shut out, and looking up I saw 
the head of an officer of police. He sur- 
veyed me keenly, — my sketch and my in- 
terior arrangements, — and then in a gruff 
voice gave me an order in low Dutch. I 
pointed to my staff holder, and continued 
painting. In a moment the officer thrust 
his head through the off window and re- 
peated his order in high Dutch. I waved 
him away firmly, and again referred him to 
cabby. 

Then a war began on the outside in 
which everybody took a hand, and in half 
a minute more the population of Amster- 
dam had blocked up the wharf. I preserved 
my Egyptian exterior, and proceeded un- 
concernedly to lay a fresh wash over my 



In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 5/ 

sky. While thus occupied, I became con- 
scious that the spiral -spring was being 
united once more to the cab. This fact 
became positive when cabby delivered up 
the umbrella-staff and opened the door. 

I got out. 

The gentleman in gilt buttons was at a 
white heat. The mass-meeting were in- 
dulging in a running fire of criticism, 
punctuated by loose cabbage leaves and re- 
jected vegetables, which sailed, bomb-like, 
through the air, and the upshot of the 
whole matter was that the officer ordered 
me away from the quay and into a side 
street. 

But why ? The streets of Amsterdam 
were free. I was out of everybody's way, 
was breaking no law, and creating no dis- 
turban ce. 

At this instant half of a yesterday's cab- 
bage came sailing through the atmosphere 
from a spot in the direction of a group of 
wharf-rats, struck the officer's helmet, and 
rolled it into the canal. A yell went up 
from the crowd, cabby went down to the 
water for the headgear, and the owner 
drew his short sword and charged on the 
wharf-rats, who suddenly disappeared. 



$2 In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 

I reentered my studio, shut the door, and 
continued work. I concluded that it was 
not my funeral. 

I remember distinctly the situation at 
this moment. I had my water-bottle in my 
hand re-filling the cups, mouth full of 
brushes, palette on my lap, and easel 
steadied by one foot. Suddenly a face sur- 
mounted by a wet helmet, and livid with 
rage, was thrust into mine, and a three- 
cornered variety of dialect that would pro- 
duce a sore throat in any one except a 
Dutchman was hurled at me, accompanied 
by the usual well-known "move on" ges- 
ture. 

Remembering the soothing influence ex- 
erted on the former mob, I touched my hat 
to his excellency, and said, " Teekenmees- 
ter." The head disappeared like a shot, 
and in an instant I was flat on my back in 
the bottom of the cab, bespattered with 
water, smeared with paint, and half smoth- 
ered under a debris of cushions, water- 
cups, wet-paper, and loose sketches, and in 
that position was unceremoniously jolted 
over the stones. 

The majesty of the law had asserted it- 
self ! I was backed up in a side street ! 



In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 53 

I broke open the door and crawled out 
in the rain. His excellency was standing 
at the head of the spiral-spring, with a 
sardonic grin on his countenance. 

The mob greeted my appearance with a 
shout of derision. I mounted the driver's 
seat and harangued them. I asked, in a 
voice which might have been heard in Rot- 
terdam, if anybody about me understood 
English. A shabbily-dressed, threadbare 
young fellow elbowed his way towards me 
and said he did. I helped him up beside 
me on the box and addressed the multi- 
tude, my seedy friend interpreting. I re- 
viewed the history of old Amsterdam and 
its traditions; its reputation for hospital- 
ity ; its powerful colonies scattered over 
the world ; its love for art and artists. 
Then I passed to the greatest of all its pos- 
sessions, — the New Amsterdam of the 
New World, my own city, — and asked 
them as Amsterdammers, or the reverse, 
whether they considered I had been fairly 
treated in the city of my great-grandfathers 
— I, a painter and a New Yorker! 

I had come three thousand miles to carry 
home to their children in the New World 
some sketches of the grand old city they 



54 In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 

loved so well, and in return I had been in- 
sulted, abused, bumped over the stones, 
and made a laughing stock. 

I would appeal to them as brothers to 
decide whether these streets of Amster- 
dam were not always open to her descend- 
ants, and whether I was not entitled to use 
them at all times by virtue of my very 
birthright. (Another shout went up, but 
this time a friendly one.) This being the 
case, I proposed to reoccupy my position 
and finish my sketch. If I had violated 
any law it was the duty of the officer to 
put me under arrest. If not, then I was 
free to do as I pleased ; and if the highly 
honorable group of influential citizens about 
me would open their ranks, I would drive 
the cab back myself to the spot from which 
I had been so cruelly torn. 

Another prolonged shout followed the 
interpretation, an opening was quickly 
made, and I had begun to chafe the spiral- 
spring with my shabby friend's umbrella, 
when cabby rushed forward, pale and trem- 
bling, seized the bridle, and begged me 
piteously to desist. My friend then ex- 
plained that cabby would probably lose his 
license if I persisted, although I might 



Iii and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 55 

carry my point and his cab back to the 
quay. 

This argument being unanswerable, a 
a council of war was held, to which a num- 
ber of citizens who were leaning over the 
front wheels were invited, and it was de- 
cided to drive at once to the nearest police 
station and submit the whole outrage to 
the chief. 

In two minutes we halted under the tra- 
ditional green glass lamp so familiar to all 
frequenters of such places. We saluted 
the sergeant, and were shown up a wind- 
ing iron staircase into a small room and up 
to a long green table, behind which sat a 
baldheaded old fellow in undress uniform, 
smoking a short pipe. 

My threadbare friend explained the cause 
of our visit. The old fellow looked sur- 
prised, and touched a bell which brought 
in another smoker in full dress, whose right 
ear served as a rack for a quill pen, and who 
used it (the pen not the ear) to take down 
our statement. Then the chief turned to 
me and asked my name. I gave it. This 
he repeated to the secretary. Occupa- 
tion ? Painter. " Teekenmeester," said he 
to the secretary. 



56 In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam 

Magic word ! I have you at last. 
Teekenmeester is Dutch for painter. 

The chief read the secretary's notes, 
signed them, and said I should call again 
in ten days, and he would submit a re- 
port. 

" Report ! What do I want with a re- 
port, your imperial highness ? It is now 
four o'clock, and I have but two hours of 
daylight to finish this sketch. I don't 
want a report. I want an order compel- 
ling the pirate who presides over the cab- 
bage market district to respect the rights 
of a descendant of Amsterdam who is 
peacefully pursuing his avocation." Cer- 
tainly, he so intended. I was at liberty to 
replace my cab and finish my sketch. The 
officer exceeded his instructions. 

But how ? I did not want either to pro- 
voke a riot or get my cabby into trouble. 
Ah, he understood. Another bell brought 
an orderly, who conducted us down-stairs, 
opened a side door, called two officers, 
placed one outside with cabby and the other 
inside with me and Threadbare, and we 
drove straight back to the quay and were 
welcomed by a shout from my constituents 
compared to which all former cheering was 



In and Out of a Cab in Amsterdam $j 

a dead silence. I looked around for his 
excellency, but he was nowhere to be seen. 

Verily, the majesty of the law had as- 
serted itself ! 

I do not think I made much of an im- 
pression as a painter in Amsterdam, but I 
have always had an idea that I could be 
elected alderman* in the cabbage market 
district. 



A WATER-LOGGED TOWN IN HOL- 
LAND 




Having 
shaken the 
water of Am- 
sterdam from 
_^ off my feet, dust 
being out of 
the question in 
this moist cli- 
mate, I have 
settled myself for a month in this sleepy 
old town of Dordrecht on the Maas. 

It is a fair sample of all Holland, — flat, 
wet, and quaint ; full of canals, market 
boats, red-tiled roofs, rosy-cheeked girls, 
brass milk cans, wooden shoes, and fish. 
Every inch of it is as clean as bare arms, 
scrubbing brushes, and plenty of water 
can make it. The town possesses an old 
gate built in fifteen hundred and some- 
thing, a Groote Kerk built before Amer- 
ica was discovered, and several old houses 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 59 

constructed immediately thereafter, to- 
gether with the usual assortment of 
bridges, dikes, market-places, and wind- 
mills. 

I lodge in two rooms at the top of a 
crooked staircase, and as three sides of my 
apartments overlook the Maas I see a con- 
stant procession of Dutch luggers, Rhine 
steamers, and fishing smacks. When it 
rains I paint from one of my windows. 
When it shines I am along the canals or 
drifting over to Papendrecht, or at work 
under the trees which fringe every street. 
My fellow lodgers afford me infinite en- 
joyment. There is a doctor who does not 
practice, a merchant who does no business, 
and mine host who is everybody's friend, 
and who attends to everything in his own 
section of the town, including his inn. 

Then there is Johan. He is porter, 
interpreter, guide, boots, railway agent, 
postal official, head waiter, and cook. He 
assumes and sustains all these various 
personages simply by the changes possible 
with a white apron, a railway badge, and 
two kinds of caps, — one flat and the other 
round-topped. 

For instance, when you arrive at the 



6o A Water-Logged Town in Holland 



'.S,s 



brisk little station of Dort, kept perma- 
nently awake by the noise of constantly 
passing trains, Johan is waiting for you, 
wearing his flat-topped cap and porter's 
badge, and has your luggage on his hand- 
cart before you know it. 

Or perhaps at dinner you ask the de- 
mure old butler for more boiled fish, and 
on looking closely and trying to recall his 
face, you are startled to recognize your 
friend at the station who handled your 
trunk. Johan enjoys your puzzled look. 
He knows it is simply a question of a 
slightly bald head and white apron in ex- 
change for a flat cap and a badge. 

Later on you ask for a guide who speaks 
your own language, whatever that may be. 
A jaunty fellow presents himself holding 
his round-topped cap in his hand, and is 
prepared to show you the universe. It is 
Johan. 

Besides this, he speaks the fag ends of 
six languages, all with a strong Dutch ac- 
cent. He says to me, " It will some rain 
more as yesterday, — don't it?" This is 
why I know he is a linguist. 

Last of all there is Sophy, who is maid 
of all work. She it is who cares for my 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 61 

rooms, sews on my buttons, wakes me in 
the morning, and washes my brushes. She 
is a rosy-cheeked girl of twenty, wears a 
snow white cap (screwed to her head with 
two gold spirals), short skirts, blue yarn 
stockings, and white wooden shoes ; and is 
never still one minute that she is awake. 

Moreover, she has a pair of arms as red 
as apples and about the size of a black- 
smith's, which she uses with a flail-like 
movement that makes her dangerous. 
Every paving-stone, door-step, window-sill, 
and pane of glass within the possession of 
mine host knows all about this pair of 
arms, for Sophy first souses them with 
great pails of water, which she herself dips 
from the canal, and then polishes them 
with a coarse towel until they shine all 
over. She has a mortal antipathy to dirt 
and a high regard for Johan, whom she 
looks upon as a superior being. 

These are my simple surroundings in 
this water-logged town. I have only one 
drawback. I do not speak its liquid dia- 
lect. 



62 A Water Logged Town in Holland 



UNDER A BALCONY. 

Behind the Groote Kerk is a moss- 
grown landing-place, shaded by a row of 
trees, the trunks of which serve as moor- 
ings for some broad Dutch luggers floating 
idly in the sluggish canal. Away up 
among the branches are their topmasts 
half hidden amidst the leaves. Across this 
narrow strip of water is thrown a slender 
foot bridge to a row of reddish brown 
houses running Venetian-like sheer into 
the canal, with their overhanging balconies 
and windows filled with gay flowers in 
bright China pots. 

I have already become quite intimate 
with the domestic affairs of some of the in- 
mates of these houses. 

One three-windowed balcony especially 
interests me. I have never seen flowers 
require so much water. Every time I look 
up from my easel she drops her eyes and 
pours on another pitcher. And then the 
pruning and trimming is something mar- 
velous ! She is a bright little body with 
big blue eyes, and the tangled vines and 
flowers climbing over the quaint wooden 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 63 

window make a charming frame for her 
pretty face. 

It is difficult to paint under such circum- 
stances, and if I over-elaborated the details 
of this balcony in my sketch, I frankly say 
I could not help it. 

Suddenly she disappears, and in her 
place stands a pleasant-faced young Hol- 
lander, having the air of a student, who 
makes me a slight bow which I gladly re- 
turn, for I am anxious to prove to him how 
honorable have been my intentions. 

In a few moments my fair window-gar- 
dener comes tripping over the bridge bear- 
ing a small tray, which, to my great aston- 
ishment, she lays at my feet on the clean 
flagging. 

She makes no reply to my thanks ex- 
cept with her eyes, and, before I am half 
through with my little speech, is over the 
bridge and out of sight. 

The tray contains some thin slices of 
cheese, a few biscuits, and a pot of milk. 
This is almost immediately followed by the 
student himself, who holds out his hand 
heartily, which I grasp, and who addresses 
me in Dutch, accompanied by those pecul- 
iar nods and frowns common to all of us 



64 A Water-Logged Town in Holland 

when we are sure we are not understood. 
I sadly shake my head. 

Then he tries Italian. I shrug my 
shoulders in a hopeless way. 

" Perhaps, sir, then, it may be that you 
speak some English?" I wanted to fall 
upon his neck. 

" Speak English, my dear sir ? It is my 
favorite language. Let us converse in 
English, by all means. But where did you 
learn it ? " 

" Here in Dordrecht. Where did you ? " 

" I ? Oh, in America. My mother 
spoke it perfectly." 

" How interesting ! I was not aware 
you Spaniards spoke it with so little accent. 
I do not speak Spanish myself, for which I 
am truly sorry. It is so musical." 

Now that was very kind of him. I knew 
that I had absorbed during my two months' 
residence in Spain something of the air of 
an Hidalgo, but I was not prepared for this ! 

He was glad to make the acquaintance 
of a Spanish painter. He so much ad- 
mired our school. He had been in his 
study and had watched me all the morning, 
and finding me still at work at lunch hour 
had taken the liberty of sending his sister 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 65 

with the tray. It was a leisure month 
with him, the college being closed. He 
would like to watch me paint, especially 
now that he knew his own windows formed 
part of the picture. 

An hour later the pretty sister is filling 
his pipe and my empty cup in a cosy little 
room with windows filled with flowers, 
through which I can see my sketching 
ground of the morning. 

She has donned another cap more be- 
witching than the first and is busying her- 
self about the room. It is a cosy little den, 
and rests you to sit in it. The walls are 
lined with shelves, laden with books. The 
tables are covered with French, English, 
and German magazines, pamphlets, and pa- 
pers. A student's lamp, a few rare etch- 
ings, some choice bits of porcelain, and 
three or four easy chairs complete the in- 
terior. 

While we smoke my host begs me tell 
him something of Spain and my people, 
and when I undeceive him as to my nation- 
ality he laughs heartily, and is doubly glad 
to make the discovery, for now that he 
knows I hail from one of the colonies I am 
of course a kinsman of his. He explains 



66 A Water-Logged Town in Holland 



>s 



that he had mistaken me for a Spaniard 
because as he watched me from his study 
window he noticed that I smoked cigar- 
ettes and twisted my moustache ! 

Late in the afternoon when I knock the 
ashes from my third pipe he insists on 
accompanying me to my boat, and before 
we part we exchange cards and arrange for 
a little dinner at my rooms the next day 
for three. 

Verily a white umbrella is better than a 
Letter of Credit ! 

As soon as I reached my lodgings I sent 
for Johan and handed him my host's card. 
" Who is that gentleman ? " His eyes 
opened very wide. "Dot yentleman ? 
Dot yentleman, Mynheer, is the professor 
of English at the university." 

A DAY WITH THE PROFESSOR. 

I tell the professor he is a godsend to 
me, for while I am all ears and eyes and 
have something of a nose for poking into 
odd places, he supplies me with a tongue, 
which completes my equipment. He re- 
turns the compliment by saying I am the 
only gentleman speaking English he has 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 67 

ever met, and that his pronunciation is im- 
proving daily. I remark to him that either 
Englishmen or politeness have been very- 
scarce in Dordrecht heretofore, at which 
he laughs and says he shall never over- 
come all the peculiarities of my language. 

Under his guidance I have ransacked 
every crook, cranny, and sluiceway in this 
curious old town. This morning being 
Friday, we go to the market. It is a small 
open square on one side of the Voorstraat. 
It is really the floor of a great stone bridge, 
for the canal runs beneath it. 

In every town in Holland on market 
day you will find two stalls which may in- 
terest you, — one is the junkman's, who 
sells old iron, hinges, locks, and broken 
kitchen ware, and sometimes rusty swords, 
fragments of armor, and rare old brass and 
copper utensils, battered and bruised. 
The other contains old books, engravings, 
and prints. 

Successive Friday mornings have added 
to my own stock of bric-a-brac, but this 
morning it is the professor who hugs all 
the way back to my improvised studio 
three great Dutch books for which he says 
he has looked for months. 



68 A Water-Logged Town in Holland 



s>^ 



He wondered yesterday why I stopped 
the milkmaid on the street and bought her 
heirloom of a milk-can covered with scars 
and patches and shining like gold, but to- 
day he is even more astonished at the mis- 
cellaneous assortment of rusty iron hinges, 
locks, and handles I have picked out, and 
which with the assistance of an aged lock- 
smith and his wife will soon be restored to 
their pristine polish. 

But I have an old Dutch cabinet at home 
which has waited for these irons for years, 
and the milk-can exactly fits the shelf on 
the top. 

He raves, however,, about these old 
books ; tells me that Mynheer somebody 
or other, whose name is full of o's and fs, 
wrote this treatise in the last century, and 
that there has been a great dispute about 
it ; that a spurious edition was published 
which at one time was accepted ; that he 
had looked for the original for many 
months. Then he removes his pipe, blows 
the blue smoke out of my window, and 
fondly pats the cover. 

I think to myself as I look at him with 
his high forehead, deep, keen eyes, and 
thoughtful look, what a thorough Bohemian 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 69 

he would have made if he had only taken 
to paint and bric-a-brac instead of lan- 
guages and literature. 

The clack of Sophy's wooden shoes hur- 
rying up-stairs announces breakfast, which 
Johan serves with more than usual solem- 
nity owing to the professor's presence, and 
also to the fact that for three days no one 
has arrived at our inn, and consequently 
his attention has not been diverted from 
his table to the duties of either porter, rail- 
way official, or guide. 

This over, Sophy clatters across the 
clean cobbles to the stone quay, and bales 
the rain of last night from my boat, and 
the professor and I drift down the Wagen- 
sluis to where some overhanging balconies 
shelter from the sun and rain an old barge, 
the bow of which serves as a foreground 
for a sketch I am finishing of the canal 
with the Groote Kerk in the distance. 
While I paint he smokes and reads, and 
nods to the passing boats, and tells me 
stories of the people about us and the cur- 
rent gossip of the town, and so the hours 
slip by. 

Then, as the shadows lengthen and my 
work is over, we row back and out on the 



yo A Water -Logged Town in Holland 

broad Maas, and watch the sun set behind 
the big windmill at Papendrecht, and the 
Dutch luggers anchored in pairs in mid- 
stream waiting for a change in the tide to 
float them to Rotterdam and a market. 

When the sun goes down and it becomes 
quite dark we drift back, picking our way 
among the market boats moored for the 
night along the quays, and up to a flight of 
wooden steps slippery with ooze and slime 
and well known to both of us. It is the 
nearest landing to a small beer house 
which we frequent. 

The landlord greets us heartily, and 
takes down two pewter-topped mugs from 
a row against the wall, and spreads a clean 
cloth over one of the tables overlooking 
the dark canal with its flickering mast-head 
lights and deep shadows. 

Before we can blow the froth from our 
mugs the landlord returns with a dish of 
cold boiled potatoes, some leaves of lettuce, 
and the castors, and the professor proceeds 
with great gravity to peel and slice, pour 
on the oil and vinegar, adding a pinch of 
salt, and finishing the whole with crisp 
sprigs of lettuce, which he plants here and 
there on the top. 



A Water -Logged Town in Holland yi 

A cup of coffee, cigarettes, and pipes, a 
few strokes of the oars, and I bid the pro- 
fessor good-night at the landing nearest his 
house, and so on to mine. 

Johan thrusts his head from the side 
window at my third ring, unlocks the door, 
and lights for me a slender candle. As I 
climb the crooked staircase, I overhear 
him yawning and muttering to himself, 
" Dot veller von America shleep notting." 

A VISIT FROM THE DOCTOR. 

From the windows of my rooms I can 
see the only busy spot in all Dordrecht. 
It is the wharf immediately beneath me, 
where all the Rhine steamers land, and 
which is crowded all day long with groups 
of people either going to or coming from 
the different small towns and villages up 
and down this outlet to the sea. 

On rainy days I draw the curtains wide 
apart, fasten back the shutters, set up my 
easel, and pick out a subject from the mov- 
ing panorama below. The wharf is piled 
high with garden truck in huge wicker 
baskets, boxes of fish, rows of brass milk 
cans reflecting their polished sides in the 



j2 A Water-Logged Town in Holland 

wet pavements, furniture, crates of crock- 
ery, and the usual assortment of small 
merchandise. On its wet planks the 
leave-takings and welcomings occur every 
half hour ; that is, upon the arrival and de- 
parture of each boat, and during the whole 
day it seems as if all the vitality and energy 
of Dordrecht had concentrated itself under 
my window. Elsewhere the town is fast 
asleep. 

Out on the Maas the lazy luggers with 
their red and white sails float by, the 
skipper's wife usually holding the tiller. 
Across the marshes the sails of the wind- 
mills turn lazily as if it were an exertion 
for them to move, and over all falls the 
gentle rain. 

On these days I have many knocks at 
my door announcing various visitors. The 
doctor generally drops in early. He is a 
cheery old soul, and although he speaks 
very little English, I have picked up 
enough broken Dutch to piece out with, 
and so we get on very well. His pic- 
turesque faded green coat, yellow nankeen 
waistcoat, and red necktie make him very 
valuable around a studio. 

Then he is never in the way. He raps, 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 73 

opens the door, sees me, shuts it, raps 
again gently, and then comes in with an 
air of surprise mingled with genuine de- 
light at finding me, fills his pipe from my 
tobacco-box, spreads himself on my lounge, 
and smokes away quietly. 

I would love him for this quality alone, 
even if he had no other, — for it is a rare 
kind of man who can come noiselessly 
into your studio when you are at work, 
dispense with more than a nod of greeting, 
slide into a seat, help himself to a pipe, and 
so unconsciously become one of your sur- 
roundings. 

Besides, the doctor is especially inter- 
ested in the small collection of old brass,- 
hammered iron, and bric-a-brac I have 
made since my sojourn with them all at the 
inn, and which is scattered about my room, 
and he takes the greatest delight in exam- 
ining each new addition that I make. 

To day he is brimful. He has heard of 
a man who lives on the quay near the po- 
tato market, just returned from Friesland, 
who has enough old Dutch leather to cover 
the walls of my two rooms, and all perfect 
and of one pattern, and very cheap ! 

I look incredulous,' and hint that so 



J4 -A Water-Logged Town in Holland 

much leather of one pattern did not exist 
in all Holland outside of a museum, and 
perhaps not in one. But he will not listen. 
He insists that the man bought the whole 
house, and then pulled it to pieces for the 
leather which lined the walls of one room. 
The potato market was close by, the rain 
was nearly over, and I must go with him 
at once. I knew the potato market and 
the quay, for I had painted them the week 
before with a pretty milk girl carrying her 
cans across the foreground of my picture. 
So to oblige him I take down my storm 
coat from its peg, and we tramp through 
the wet streets to the market and up to a 
small house, the front of which is built on 
an angle, so that the third story windows 
lean over the sidewalk. This enables the 
occupants to see who comes in the front 
door without going down-stairs, — not an 
unusual style of house, by the way, in Hol- 
land. 

" Would Mynheer show the painter from 
America the leather he had in the gar- 
ret?" 

Mynheer at first did not have any leather 
at all in the garret ; then he had only a 
few pieces, but they were not there ; then 



A Water-Logged Town in Holland 75 

he could get some more if we would call 
the next day. 

But this did not suit the doctor. He 
knew all about it. He had a friend who 
had seen it. Mynheer need not expect to 
keep the leather for the rich Englishman. 
The American painter would pay more. 

At this the old Shylock led the way up 
an almost perpendicular staircase. The 
doctor was right. There lay the leather 
in flat sheets and of a quality and quantity 
that proved the truth of the whole story, 
but the price demanded would have ruined 
the American painter. 

On the way home the old fellow built up 
and destroyed a dozen schemes by which I 
was to get the leather at half its value or 
my own price, none of which would have 
been possible without the permission of the 
police. 

The next morning a much softer knock 
than usual announces the good doctor, 
wearing so sad a face that I fear some ca- 
lamity has overtaken him. He only shakes 
his head and puffs away. Then it leaks 
out that on his way to the post he had 
seen Shylock packing on the sidewalk a 
long, wide, flat box, marked London. The 
Englishman had bought the leather. 



j6 A Water-Logged Town in Holland 

Since then the doctor often starts up 
from my lounge after a long reverie, 
knocks the ashes from his pipe, lays his 
hand upon my shoulder, looks at me sadly, 
and says, " Dot Englishman ! " And then 
goes out shaking his head ominously. In- 
cidents like these in my quiet life at this 
charming old inn make even rainy days 
pleasant in Dordrecht. 




ON THE RIVA, VENICE 

My gondolier, Ingenio, is a wrinkled old 
sea-dog, with gray hair and stooping shoul- 
ders, who has the air of a retired buccaneer 
and the voice of a girl. His gondola has 
been my home for a month past, and he 
has been my constant companion. As he 
speaks nothing but Italian and I nothing 
resembling it, we have adopted a sign lan- 
guage which answers perfectly. This 
morning he comes through the garden 
where I am taking my coffee, points to his 
gondola floating at the foot of the marble 
steps leading to the Grand Canal, touches 
his forehead, then his pocket, holds up two 
fingers and motions as if to sit down. I 
understand at once that he has thought of 
a new shop where for a few francs we can 
buy two antique chairs, of a pattern es- 
pecially desired by me. 

These chairs have greatly bothered In- 
genio. Under the plea of searching for 



y8 On the Riva 

them, I have ransacked half the old palaces 
in Venice, and have discovered most mar- 
velous rooms, with ceilings of carved 
beams edged with gilt, with faded fres- 
coes, exquisite marble staircases leading 
thereto, and often quaint and picturesque 
interiors inhabited by the present genera- 
tion. 

I have, of course, found every variety of 
chair, old and new, but the search has been 
so delightful, and the discoveries have par- 
taken so much of the unexpected, that I 
refuse to be satisfied with any of them, 
and so continue my explorations ; Ingenio 
poking the nose of his gondola into every 
crooked canal in Venice, and I my own up 
one half of her equally crooked staircases 
and across many an old courtyard and 
damp, mould-covered garden. 

But this morning I shook my head, 
which was full of another and a more 
brilliant idea, — an idea which I conveyed 
to Ingenio by pointing down the canal 
with my umbrella staff, putting up my 
hands like a little praying Samuel, and 
sketching an imaginary bridge on the 
tablecloth with my coffee spoon. 

Insrenio understood at once. He knew 



On the Riva yg 

that I wanted to paint the bridge near the 
old church on the Riva degli Schiavoni. 

In five minutes we were floating past the 
Piazza and San Marco, and in as many 
more had reached the quay near the Church 
of the Santa Maria della Pieta. 

I had seen a group of fishing boats 
moored here as I drifted past the afternoon 
before, and I reasoned that, as the tide did 
not change until noon, there was, perhaps, 
time to catch them before they spread 
their gorgeous wings of red and gold and 
flew away to their homes in Chioggia. 

We landed at the small piazza which 
formed the quay, at the end of which ran 
a flight of marble steps up and over the 
bridge. To the left of this were moored 
the boats with all sails set, hanging listless 
in the still air. In front was the white 
marble pavement baking in the sun. 

I soon found the open door of the Santa 
Maria was my only shelter from the blind- 
ing heat. By hugging one side of the 
porch, and resting one leg of my easel 
against the lower hinge, I was sheltered in 
the shadow, and could still see the subject 
of my picture entire. So without more 
ado, I opened my folding seat and unlimb- 



80 On the Riva 

ered my trap, while Ingenio filled the 
water bottles. 

There are so many white umbrellas and 
floating studios in Venice that an artist at 
work excites very little curiosity. Occa- 
sionally the novelty of my position would 
tempt some penitent to glance over my 
shoulder, as she entered the church, mak- 
ing room lest she disturb me, but with this 
exception I worked on without interrup- 
tion. 

As the heat increased, the worshipers 
grew less numerous and the quay became 
nearly deserted. Ingenio, who had gone 
to sleep in the shadow, was now broiling 
in the sun, and my left or palette hand felt 
scorching hot. 

But these are trifles when you have two 
fishing boats half finished, the tide to turn 
in two hours, and you begin to note the 
crew already moving about and restlessly 
handling the ropes. You grow nervous 
every time a man goes ashore, lest he shall 
cast off the moorings, and so wreck your 
morning's work. 

Suddenly a sunbeam shot across the up- 
per corner of my canvas. I looked around 
and up. The sun was slanting over and 



On the Riva 81 

down the cornice of the church, and with 
such intensity that I felt an immediate 
change of base imperative. You cannot 
see color by the side of a sunbeam. 

In Venice, when your best friends fail 
and life begins to be a burden, you have 
one resource, — you call for your gondolier. 
So I awoke Ingenio. He appreciated the 
situation at once. He ran to the gondola, 
brought back my large umbrella, and 
wasted ten minutes of my precious time in 
attempting to drive its spiked staff into a 
flight of polished marble steps. The only 
result was the loss of the spike and the 
little that remained of my good temper. 

After this failure I decided that heroic 
treatment was all that was left. I first 
pointed to my half-finished sails, seized the 
ropes in an imaginary sort of way as if low- 
ering them, and then lifted my hands in 
despair. Then I gave him two francs, and 
followed him with my eyes as he disap- 
peared over the bridge and reappeared on 
the deck of one of the boats. 

A row of grinning faces all looked my 
way, and in a moment more Ingenio re- 
turned without the money and with one of 
the fishermen. The latter gazed silently 



82 On the Riva 

at my sketch and said, "Buono." I was 
reassured. The sails were safe, at all 
events. But the heat continued to be 
frightful. 

Another pantomime then followed with 
Ingenio, to which the fisherman lent a 
helping hand. I unfolded my plan slowly 
and with some misgivings. Ingenio turned 
a trifle pale and the fisherman looked some- 
what alarmed. Five francs more, and a 
pleasanter expression asserted itself in the 
latter's face. Then they both measured 
the distance between the two doors, found 
an iron hook high up on the mouldings 
over the arch, returned to the boats, and in 
five minutes I had rigged an orange-colored 
jib sail across the entrance of the church, 
and had crawled in underneath, out of the 
sun, into its grateful shadow ! 

I do not offer any apology for this. I 
distinctly vow that I intended no disre- 
spect to the most holy Maria della Pieta. 
I was simply backed up into a church door 
on the sunny side of a quay, with the ther- 
mometer in the nineties, an unfinished 
sketch before me, a marble wall behind 
me, and but two hours of tide remaining. 
The effect of a jib sail on Venetian church 



On the Riva 83 

architecture was not under consideration 
by me. The possible loss of one in my 
picture was at the moment of greater im- 
portance. 

At that instant the horror-stricken and 
very oily face of a well-fed priest peered 
into my improvised tent, and from it fol- 
lowed a torrent of Italian. I raised my hat 
meekly, bowed reverently, and pointed to 
Ingenio. While the discussion lasted, I 
managed to finish the rigging, the awning 
on deck, and the gondola alongside, but 
the crisis had arrived. I must either take 
in the jib or go with the priest. This sen- 
timent seemed also to be shared by the 
crowd. I preferred the latter, and detail- 
ing the fisherman to stand by and "repel 
boarders," I called Ingenio, and followed 
his oiliness through the cool church, down a 
long passage, and up to a dark green door 
heavily hinged and locked. 

The priest touched a bell, footsteps were 
heard, and a sliding panel revealed the sad 
face of a nun. A word of explanation fol- 
lowed, the bolts were shot back, and I 
found myself in a small vestibule leading 
into a low room, white, bare, and scrupu- 
lously clean. In a moment more the nun 



84 On the Riva 

returned, bringing the Mother Superior. 
I saluted her as if she had been the Queen 
of Sheba. She listened incredulously to 
the voluble priest as he elaborated the out- 
rage, and then indignantly turned to In- 
genio, who hung his head and chewed the 
rim of his hat. Then she raised both hands 
as if in amazement, looked me straight in 
the face, and slowly shook her head. The 
sad-faced nun waited, and heard me expos- 
tulate in my choicest English that I had 
the greatest reverence for every church in 
Italy and for every Lady Superior. I only 
objected to the climate, and to the fact that 
this particular church was not on the shady 
side of the quay. 

Then the nun slipped away, and pres- 
ently returned with a sister in gray, who 
had the face of a Madonna and the voice 
of an angel, and an English angel at that. 
She questioned the priest, then Ingenio, 
then the sad-faced nun, and then turned to 
me. 

Did the painter speak Italian ? Not a 
word. Furthermore, he was a stranger in 
a foreign land, away from the home of his 
childhood, without friends except this poor 
gondolier, his only possession being a half- 



On the Riva 85 

finished sketch and a jib sail, for both of 
which he pleaded. 

She listened, half smiling, and said the 
priest need not remain, and perhaps the 
gondolier had best return and watch my 
easel ; the good mother need not be 
alarmed. There was some mistake. She 
would return to the church with the painter 
and verify the good priest's story. 

I stopped for a moment as she made her 
devotions at the altar. As we reached the 
outer door she caught sight of the jib, and 
stood still as if shocked. My yellow rag 
was waving in the sunlight as defiant as a 
matador's cloak ! 

Stooping under the improvised awning, 
she closely examined the sketch. How 
long would it take to finish it ? Half an 
hour. Be quick about it, then. If I did 
not mind, she would watch me paint. She 
stood for a long time without speaking, 
and then said, " Would not a touch of rose 
madder help that shadow? " "You paint, 
then ? " I asked, following her suggestion. 
"I did once," she replied, and turned her 
head sadly and looked out over the blue 
lagoon towards San Giorgio. 

An hour later she watched Ingenio and 



86 On the Riva 

the fisherman take down the jib and re- 
turn it to the boats. But she would not 
receive my thanks. All artists were her 
friends. The sail made no difference, the 
sun was too hot to work without it, and 
she understood it all when she saw the 
sketch. She would close the church door. 
I need not wait. I drifted slowly out into 
the lagoon and looked back. She was still 
standing in the archway, shading her eyes 
with her hand, and watching us. 

Then the fishing boats spread their sails, 
drifted past, and shut her from my sight. 
Ingenio's cry of warning as he rounded a 
turn in the canal awoke me from my rev- 
erie. I picked up my sketch and stepped 
ashore. I will give it to any one who will 
tell me the history of that good gray nun. 



A SUMMER'S DAY IN VENICE 




Below the 
Piazza and 
quite near the 
Public Gar- 
den there is 
a small wine 
shop, the 
open door of 
which is cov- 
- ered by a 
striped awn- 
ing of red and orange. Underneath this 
at all times of the day and most of the 
night are collected a group of Italians, who 
have one object in life which they never 
lose sight of, — never to do to-day what 
they can possibly do to-morrow or the next 
week. If time is money, the average Ve- 
netian is a millionaire. He has stored up 
for present and future use such a vast 
amount of leisure that it makes a busy man 
envious to contemplate him. 



88 A Summer's Day in Venice 

If you leave your gondola and cross the 
sun-baked quay to this shelter, these aris- 
tocrats will make room for you at their ta- 
ble and hand you a flagon of tepid water 
and a saucer containing two lumps of 
sugar ; or perhaps the landlord will bring 
you a bottle of Cerise (cherry juice) and a 
thin cigar about the size and length of a 
shoestring. The cigar has a movable 
backbone of a single broom straw. 

Inside of this retreat are small tables, 
around which are seated other nabobs 
drinking coffee and playing dominoes. Oc- 
casionally one will rise from his seat, ap- 
proach a high table at one end of the room, 
select a small bit of dried fish from a pew- 
ter platter, and gravely resume his chair 
with the air of a man who really owned the 
whole fish, but allowed the landlord to keep 
it on his sideboard merely as a mark of the 
high esteem in which he held him. 

Should you land immediately opposite 
the awning and the open door, so as to be 
quite within sight from the inside, one of 
these princes will slide from his seat very 
much as a turtle does from his log and hold 
your boat steady with his staff until you 
step ashore. For this service you give 



A Summer's Day in Venice 8g 

him one penny, and quite a small penny at 
that. 

A turn of Ingenio's wrist whirled the 
sharp blade of my gondola close to this 
quay one lovely morning in August with 
results to me exactly similar to what I have 
described, and in a moment more I was 
dropping my second lump into the clumsy 
little cup which the landlord filled from the 
common pot. 

What to paint to-day was the question 
that bothered me. Should I go back to 
the Rialto and try the flight of steps up 
from the canal with the gondolas and boats 
in the foreground, or the view from the 
Piazzetta across the small fruit-market 
with the Great Bridge in the distance, or 
should I keep on to the Public Gardens 
and catch the fishing boats as they came 
across from the Lido ? 

Ingenio stood by, hat in hand, trying to 
read my thoughts. It is delightful to 
watch him. He starts off with a great 
show of enthusiasm, points up the canal, 
seizes a cup, turns it upside down, plants a 
fork beside it, and by this pantomime seeks 
to recall to me a spot in yesterday's excur- 
sion where I halted long enough to make 



go A Summer's Day in Venice 

some memoranda of a cluster of mooring 
piles with the round dome of the Salute in 
the distance. 

" No ? Bah ! Certainly not ; how stupid 
of me ! " (All this in his face, for his na- 
tive tongue is still unintelligible to me.) 
"That would be impossible. Then how 
about this ? " And then follows another 
arrangement of saucers for sails, lumps of 
sugar for steps, and other breakfast acces- 
sories illustrating minor details which make 
it very plain to me that the spot in his 
mind now is lower down the Riva where 
the fishermen tie their boats to the stair- 
case. This, after all, is really the only 
spot in Venice worthy the consideration of 
a great painter on so charming a morning 
as this. 

But I did not want the staircase, and In- 
genio saw it. I did, however, want another 
cup of coffee, and this he brought me. 

But where to go, and what to paint ! I 
have learned never to attempt to solve any 
difficulties in Venice. I fall back on my 
gondolier. 

A section of the Venetian Committee of 
Finance followed me to my gondola, and a 
modern Dives added one half of one penny 



A Summer's Day in Venice 91 

to his wordly store steadying my boat. 
Ingenio bent to his oar, we glided along 
the edge of the quay, and I looked back. 
My gondolier had solved the problem. I 
would paint the wine shop. My eye had 
caught the flat quay protected by the mar- 
ble railing, the glare of the white wall 
against the deep blue sky, the arching 
stairway, the soft, filmy outline of the 
Salute in the distance, and, centring the 
whole composition, the brilliant-colored 
awning casting its rich shadow, in which 
were dotted the groups of wealthy capital- 
ists with the unlimitable bank account of 
interminable leisure. 

An obliging row of houses served as an 
umbrella and cast a grateful shadow, upon 
the edge of which I planted my easel. In 
five minutes more I was working away 
with as much gusto as if I had planned to 
paint this identical wine shop weeks be- 
fore. 

The usual Venetian crowd collected and 
looked over my shoulder. The woman 
carrying her two copper water-pails slung 
to a light yoke, and which she had filled 
at the fountain in the Piazzetta adjoining ; 
the girls stringing beads ; the fishermen 



92 A Summer's Day in Venice 

carrying their nets to the boats moored 
below ; another painter with his trap — eti- 
quette forbids him the privilege of the 
masses, but all the same I am conscious 
that he slackens his pace and edges as 
near as he can, and tiptoes himself for a 
glance ; the tangle - haired children with 
abbreviated clothing and faces like Ra- 
phael's cherubs ; the old hags shuffling 
along in their heelless shoes ; the fat priest 
in his sandals, and the pretty flower-girl in 
a costume not her own, — all these types 
are well known to the painter in Venice. 

Out on the canal I hear the shouts of 
the gondoliers and boatmen. My limited 
knowledge of their language prevents my 
understanding what the controversy is all 
about, but all the boatmen on both sides of 
the water have a voice in it, and I am con- 
vinced from the way in which they em- 
phasize some of their expressions that their 
dialect is punctuated by a very choice va- 
riety of profanity. 

In the midst of this Babel, which is sud- 
denly increased by the arrival of a number 
of fruit and fish venders, I hear a strain of 
music, sung with such a full, free, whole- 
souled sort of a voice that it drowns all 



A Summer's Day in Venice g$ 

other sounds and instantly catches my 
ear : — 

" Jammo jammo neoppa jammo ja." 

It is a Neapolitan song very popular in 
Venice this summer. 

Over the bridge it comes, and in a mo- 
ment more I catch sight of the singer as he 
mounts the steps. First his red cap 
perched on the back of his head, crowning 
a mass of jet-black hair ; then his sun- 
burned face, blue shirt open from the 
throat to the waist, red sash, and white 
trousers ; and then, as he descends on my 
side of the bridge, I notice that he is bare- 
footed. A roar of laughter greets him as 
he halts at the wine shop, and follows him 
as he makes his way towards the crowd 
around my easel. Before he reaches me 
he breaks out again : — 

"Jammo jammo neoppa jammo ja. 
Funiculi Funicula Funiculi Funiculi." 

Everybody about me welcomes him. 
The flower-girl gives him a rose, and one 
of the girls stringing beads a kiss ; the old 
woman a scolding, at which he laughs and 
makes a grimace, which instantly puts her 
in a good humor again. As he nears my 
easel he picks up a child, pinches it, and, 



94 A Summer's Day in Venice 

when it cries, kisses it and puts it down. 
Then he plants himself immediately in front 
of me, completely hiding my view, and 
cranes his neck trying to see my sketch 
upside down. He is not impertinent, or 
rude, or aggressive ; he only wants to see 
what is going on. 

I mildly expostulate, and the crowd 
break out against him in a chorus ; and 
when he cannot be made to understand 
that he is very much in my way and very 
much out of his, Ingenio turns up and leads 
him gently to the rear. Then he sees it 
all, laughs until the quay rings, pats me on 
the back, and apologizes like a gentleman. 

Before I can reply he dodges into a hall- 
way opposite, hauls out a great seine, 
spreads it on the marble flagging of the Pi- 
azzetta, and falls to mending it with a will, 
singing at the top of his voice, and stop- 
ping every few moments to argue with the 
girl who is making lace behind her pot of 
flowers in the balcony over the way, or 
chaff some gondolier landing at the quay 
on his left, or send some witticism flying 
after a passer-by, to the intense delight of 
the whole community. 

This went on for hours, I painting quietly, 



A Summer's Day in Venice 95 

and this breezy, happy-hearted, bare-footed, 
sunburned, rosy-cheeked fisherman keeping 
the whole place alive and awake. Finally, 
he gathered up the net just as I finished 
washing my brushes, stowed it away in his 
boat near by, waved his hand to me, re- 
turned to his house and brought out a ta- 
ble, two chairs, and a bottle of Chianti 
wine, and, without a moment's hesitation, 
crossed to where I was packing my sketch- 
trap, strapped it himself, locked his arm 
through mine, and led me to his table, his 
honest, handsome face saying as plain as 
could be told, " Come, comrade, we have 
had a hard day's work ; now let us have a 
bottle together." And we did. 

I never see a bottle of Chianti but I 
think of this sunny fisherman, and I never 
drink one but I pledge him a bumper. I 
send him my greeting over the sea, and 
long life to him, and a wife to love him, and 
plenty of fish, and plenty of Chianti, and 
one bottle always for me ! I owe him my 
thanks for his hearty laugh, and his song, 
and his courtesy, and for his share in mak- 
ing this summer's day the pleasantest I 
spent in Venice. 



THE TOP OF A GONDOLA 




While I 
am at break- 
f as t this 
morning a 
fl e e t of 
lighter boats 
sweep slowly past my garden and moor to 
a cluster of piles off the Dogana. 

I have been on the lookout for this pic- 
turesque flotilla for some time, and Ingenio 
knows it. Before I have half finished my 
omelette he arrives off the marble steps, 
and rounds in his gondola, steadying her 
against the incoming tide with one hand 
and waving his congratulations with the 
other. 

One peculiarity of this gentle, loyal soul 
is the intense personal interest he takes in 
my affairs. When I am satisfied with my 
day's work Ingenio is bubbling over with 
happiness, and hums to himself as he rows 
along some old song, or rather one line of 



The Top of a Gondola gy 

it. When my sky becomes muddy, or my 
shadows opaque, and I irritable and dis- 
gusted (what painter is not so sometimes ?), 
poor Ingenio pulls aways mute and sad, 
and comes forward every now and then 
with an anxious expression upon his face 
and watches the sketch as if it was a sick 
child and I the physician upon whom its 
life depended. 

This morning he is as happy over the 
arrival of these golden-winged boats from 
beyond the Lido as if he was my man Fri- 
day crying a sail ! and I his shipwrecked 
master. 

In five minutes we are off, and running 
under the shadow of the Salute. As it is 
too hot to work in the sun, moored to a 
spile on the Canal, I direct Ingenio to the 
broad landing of the church, hoping to find 
some spot where I can put up my easel 
and umbrella and paint the group of light- 
ers in comfort and at my leisure. 

I convey this information with my um- 
brella-staff very much as a Londoner di- 
rects and stops a hansom cab with his 
walking-stick. Ingenio sees the point (of 
the staff, of course) over the edge of my 
gondola's awning, darts in among a num- 



p8 The Top of a Gondola 

ber of fishing boats, and immediately be- 
gins a search in the pavement of the Piaz- 
zetta for a crack wide and deep enough in 
which to anchor my umbrella and still keep 
sight of the lighters. 

This combination proved difficult. There 
were cracks enough, and views enough ; 
the problem was to utilize them together. 

It is true, there was also a long, cool 
shadow slanting across the marble pave- 
ment which would serve as an umbrella, 
and which for a time was tempting, but 
sober second thought convinced me that 
it could not be depended on. It was not 
the shadow of the great dome of the Sa- 
lute, but of one of its small towers ; and 
the sun, in his mad climb to the zenith, 
was fast melting it up. 

But if the shadow failed me Ingenio did 
not, for at that instant he returned from a 
search after narrow cracks with news of 
some wide openings. These proved to be 
half a dozen or more felsi laid up for the 
summer on the far side of the landing, 
under which I could crawl and so escape 
the heat. 

The discovery so pleased my faithful 
gondolier that, without waiting for any in- 



The Top of a Gondola gg 

structions from me, he picked up the traps 
and deposited them in front of a row of 
great black beetles sprawled out on the 
pavement, apparently sunning themselves. 
On closer inspection they proved to be the 
tops of gondolas used in wet and wintry 
weather, whose owners, having no imme- 
diate use for them, had laid them by for a 
rainy day like their extra pennies. 

I inspected each one in turn, found one 
larger than the others commanding a cap- 
ital view of the boats, and crawled in at 
once. 

It made a delightful studio, was just high 
enough and wide enough, and had two 
windows on each side, with sliding shut- 
ters and sash like a cab's, which proved 
admirable in managing the light on my 
canvas. 

The result was that I spent the whole 
day under its shelter, and finally completed 
my picture, Ingenio bringing me, from one 
of the fishing boats, some broiled fish and 
a pot of coffee for luncheon, which I 
shared with him, he occupying the adjoin- 
ing felse, and pushing his cup under mine 
for me to fill. 

When the sun went down and I began 



wo The Top of a Gondola 

packing up my traps, a number of gon- 
doliers arrived, one of whom, a forbidding- 
looking fellow with a shock of red hair, 
informed Ingenio that the felse belonged 
to his gondola, and that he demanded eight 
lira for the use of it. On my replying that 
he could not earn one quarter of that 
amount with his zuJwle gondola, and that 
one lira, which I handed him, would be 
more than a reasonable rent for his station- 
ary sunshade, at best but half a. gondola, he 
flew into a great rage, and tossed the lira 
back to Ingenio. Then rinding that I paid 
no further attention to him and moved off, 
he collected a crowd of gondoliers, who, 
uniting their cries to his, jumped into their 
boats, and followed my own to the water 
stairs of my lodgings, the whole mob shout- 
ing and gesticulating wildly. 

There we were met by the porter. He 
is rather a thin gentleman with a high fore- 
head, and is proverbial for his politeness. 
As his entire life is spent on the front steps 
helping people in and out of their gondolas, 
it is deserved. He performed that service 
for me, and then turned upon the howling 
mob. 

It was simply delightful to see the way 



The Top of a Gondola 101 

he handled them. They evidently knew 
him, and respected either his authority or 
patronage, — the latter probably. 

During the discussion I sought the quiet 
of the garden, followed by Ingenio, who 
vented his indignation upon the whole crew, 
being especially severe upon the gentle- 
man with the auburn locks, whom he de- 
scribed by gestures of infinite disgust. 

Before long the porter sought me out, 
and explained that these gondoliers were 
a rough set, and that if I valued my peace 
of mind while in Venice I ought to make 
some settlement of the affair, and either 
pay the amount demanded or explain the 
circumstances to the other gondoliers. 

At this juncture an idea occurred to me 
which I proceeded to put into practice. 

I would invite the plaintiff and half a 
dozen of his confreres into the garden, in- 
stall the porter as chief justice, and argue 
the case before him. 

This programme was immediately car- 
ried out, — the porter acting in the double 
capacity of interpreter and judge. 

The gondolier opened the case. He 
stated that he had been at work all day, 
and being too poor to pay some one to 



102 The Top of a Gondola 

watch his felse" had left it unguarded. On 
his return, in the evening, he had surprised 
this rich painter as he was leaving it, and 
who, after occupying it all day, had refused 
to pay for the privilege, except in a coin of 
so little value that it was almost an insult 
to the profession to offer it. 

On the cross-examination it was shown 
that at this season of the year there were 
several hundred felsi decorating the vacant 
quays, landings, and piazzas of Venice 
(there being no back yards in which to 
store them) ; that a gondola had a summer 
and a winter top, consequently only one 
was or could be used at the same time ; 
and that now, in summer time, the felse I 
I occupied was about of as much use to the 
plaintiff as two umbrellas on a rainy day. 

It was also shown that the gross earnings 
of a gondolier and a gondola combined av- 
erage less than three lira a day, and that 
there was no instance on record in Venice 
or elsewhere in which any gondolier had 
ever collected any large or small amount 
of money for the use of a felse for any 
period of time, long or short. 

On the re-direct, the plaintiff wanted the 
judge and jury to remember that no bar- 



The Top of a Gondola 103 

gain had been made for the use of the 
felse ; that accordingly he had a right to 
charge what he considered would com- 
pensate him, especially since there existed 
no tariff for laid-by felsi ; and that, in de- 
fiance of his rights of ownership, I had 
forcibly entered and taken possession. 

The effect of this last shot on the jury 
was very pronounced. They looked at each 
other wisely, and nodded concurrence. 

It was now my turn, and as I was con- 
ducting my own case I summed up for the 
defense. 

I asked the jury whether Italy was not 
now free, and whether Venice was not a 
city free to her citizens and to the stran- 
gers within her gates. I reminded them 
that the days of Austrian tyranny were 
days of the past, and that any Italian who 
would wish to renew them would be a 
traitor to his country. 

In those days a tax was placed upon the 
people of Venice so severe that the priva- 
tions it caused were still fresh in their 
memories. 

Now, thanks to a humane government 
under a wise king, all such onerous bur- 
dens had been lifted from the people. 



104 The Top of a Gondola 

Venice had a free harbor, free canals, free 
churches, piazzas, and landings. 

How came it, then, that this plaintiff, 
representing so loyal a body of hardwork- 
ing citizens as the gondoliers, should seek 
to bring back the days of tyranny and 
wrong ? 

The king had said these piazzas were 
free, and under this ruling I, a stranger, 
in the peaceful pursuit of my profession, 
had taken up my position in one of them. 
I had really occupied the pavement, not the 
felse [sensation] ; and if its top happened 
to be over me and so shaded me from the 
heat of the sun, that circumstance gave the 
plaintiff no more ground for charging me 
eight lira for its use than it did the owner 
of a palace, who happened to own the 
shady side of the street, and so charged 
passers-by for the relief it afforded them. 

This settled it. The judge decided in 
favor of the defendant, maintaining that 
felsi and Venice were free, and that the 
only charge which could reasonably be 
made would be against the gondolier for 
obstructing the painter and annoying him 
while engaged in the peaceful pursuit of 
his profession. 



The Top of a Gondola 105 

Ingenio afterwards reported that the 
verdict was entirely satisfactory to the 
jury, and also to the gondolier, who had not 
seen it in that light before. 

When I saw him the next day and 
handed him again the one lira, he touched 
his hat and said, " Gracias, signor." 

Since this little incident I have been 
more than ever impressed with the majesty 
of the law, which somehow or other always 
seems to protect me in these my wander- 
ings! 



BEHIND THE RIALTO 




I am at 
work painting 
an old bridge 
spanning a 
narrow canal 
which flows 
behind the Rialto. It is the sole depend- 
ence of a crooked crevice of a street which 
it helps over and across a sluggish water 
way and into a small open square facing a 
church. This bridge also provides shop 
space for a vender of cheap pottery, whose 
wares of green and red glisten in the sun, 
supplying a spot of brilliant color to my 
composition. I know this church and its 
quaint interior, and I also know the cafe 
next to it, for here Ingenio and I often 
breakfast. It is an unpretentious place, but 
the coffee is always good, and sometimes 
the landlord serves a cutlet sliced quite 
thin and smothered in an inviting sauce. 
This morning I prefer breakfasting in 



Behind the Rial to loy 

my gondola, and so send Ingenio for coffee 
and whatever else he can bring me from 
a larder rarely overstocked. 

If you have never breakfasted in a gon- 
dola moored under the windows of an old 
palace, on its cool side, with your curtains 
drawn back, the water gurgling about you 
and reflecting the thousand tints of marble 
walls, white sails, and blue skies, I com- 
mend it to you as an experience which, 
once enjoyed, you will never forget. 

When Ingenio returns with the coffee 
he brings me a message from the landlord, 
" that he is cooking a cutlet, and will send 
it to the bridge." Later on, in looking 
from between my curtains, I see a pale- 
faced child, scarce ten years of age, carry- 
ing between her outstretched hands a cov- 
ered dish. I notice, also, that Ingenio 
helps her carefully down the slippery steps 
of the landing, relieves her of the cutlet, 
and when she hesitates and is timid about 
returning, picks her up gently in his arms, 
and places her safely on the quay at the en- 
trance of the crevice of a street, through 
which she disappears waving her hand. 

In my experience gondoliers are not in 
the habit of exhibiting such watchful care 



108 Behind the Rialto 

over the youth of Venice, and so I ask In- 
genio, in our sign language, now quite 
well understood between us, if the child 
belongs to him. 

The old man smiles sadly, and a far- 
away look comes into his eyes ; then he 
shakes his head. 

The cutlet and sketch finished, the gon- 
dola is headed up the canal, and Ingenio 
and I begin our daily search for good bric- 
a-brac at poor prices. To-day I want a 
staff, or boat-hook, similar to one I saw 
yesterday in the hands of a Venetian gen- 
tleman of unlimited leisure, who used it in 
steadying the gondola of an Englishman of 
unlimited means, who upon alighting im- 
mediately purchased it. It was studded all 
over with copper coins of various dates and 
diameters nailed to the wood, a kind of 
portable savings bank, and was altogether 
a very curious and interesting exhibit of 
Venetian life. 

Ingenio thinks he knows a gondolier 
who may still own one. He is to be found 
at the right-hand landing of the Rialto. 
So we twist our way in and out of the nar- 
row water ways, and under many bridges, 
and then through the broad water of the 



Behind the Rial to log 

Grand Canal, spanned by the famous arch. 
But Ingenio's friend could not be found at 
the landing, or anywhere else in the vicin- 
ity, so we try another bridge lower down, 
and not finding him there, give up the 
search in this direction. A shop near the 
fish-market, another in one of the streets 
near the Piazzetta, and a fisherman's house 
above it, were next visited without success. 
Then Ingenio tells me he thinks he can 
find a staff near his own home, but a short 
distance away. Might he turn the gondola 
into the canal to our left ? 

He had often before asked me to visit 
his home. At one time, it was because of 
a cafe opposite his house where they made 
an excellent omelette ; again, it was a cab- 
inet-maker, who kept his shop near where 
he lived, and who had some old engravings 
in black frames. To-day, it is this much 
sought for staff. 

Until now either want of time or some 
more interesting excursion had always pre- 
vented my consenting, and, when I again 
refuse, the same sad expression I often see 
passes over his face, and so, to please him, 
I nod my head. A few quick strokes 
bring us to an angle in the canal running 



I jo Behind the Riallo 

behind the Rialto, and quite near where I 
had breakfasted in the morning. 

A pleasant-faced woman, prematurely 
old, comes down a flight of steps built 
under a culvert-shaped arch, and holds the 
boat to the lower step. It is Ingenio's 
wife. I follow her under the arch, up a 
tottering flight of steps, and into a small, 
scrupulously clean room with high ceiling. 
It is their living room, and, like all Vene- 
tian kitchens, has its fire-place built out 
from the wall, while on either side of the 
raised hearth, two small windows, about 
one foot square, look out on the canal. 
The shelf over the hearth, and the wall 
above it, shine with well-polished brass and 
copper pans. White curtains soften the 
glare of the sunlight. Some pictures of 
the Holy Mother, a cheap crucifix, and a 
few articles of furniture complete the inte- 
rior. Ingenio enters, having moored the 
gondola, gives me the best chair, draws the 
curtains that I may see the view of the 
Grand Canal and the Rialto, officiates as 
sign-interpreter between me and his wife, 
and then disappears into an adjoining room, 
leaving the door ajar. The good wife 
rises quickly and closes it behind him. 



Behind the Rialto u I 

As she regains her seat she says some- 
thing to me in Italian which I do not un- 
derstand. 

In a moment more the door reopens 
and Ingenio enters, carrying in his arms 
a pale, hollow-cheeked child, about ten 
years of age, who looks at me wonderingly 
with her great round eyes. One hand is 
wound around her father's neck, her thin 
fingers lost in his bushy gray beard. The 
other holds a short crutch. I shall never 
forget the tender way with which the old 
man placed her on a low stool at his side, ca- 
ressing her hair, holding fast her hand, and 
talking to her in a low undertone in his 
soft Italian ; nor the tremor in his voice 
when he leaned over to me and said, point- 
ing to his crippled daughter : — 

" This one belongs to me." 

It was all the child he had, poor fellow. 
She filled his heart full with her bright 
face and loving ways, and although she 
was his greatest sorrow, he was proud of 
her, and proud that I had seen her. Sev- 
eral years ago she had fallen from one of 
the bridges, struck a passing boat, and 
broken her thigh. Since then she had 
lived in these two rooms. 



H2 Behind the Rialto 

I understood now why he lifted ashore 
so tenderly my little waitress with the cut- 
let. 

When I regained my gondola I re- 
minded Ingenio of the object of our search. 
Was the man at home ? Had he seen the 
staff ? Would he bring it to the boat ? 
He hung his head, and did not move. 

Then it all came out. There was no 
man with a gondola staff. There had 
been no cabinet-maker next door, with 
rare old engravings in black frames, nor 
any cafes with toothsome omelettes. 

It was Giulietta he wanted me to see. 

Patient, loyal, gentle, old gondolier ! 
With me you will forever be a part of 
sunny skies, old palaces, and the silver 
shimmer of the Lido, the bright sails of red 
and gold, the cool of dim, incense-laden 
churches, and crooked canals under quaint 
bridges. 

Even now I hear your warning cry as 
you round the sharp corners of the canals. 
But I love best to remember you with 
that pale-faced child in your arms. 



UP A BELFRY IN BAVARIA 




I am aware 
that this is rather 
an indefinite bel- 
fry, for Bavaria 
covers a wide ter- 
ritory, and bel- 
fries are by no 
means rare ; but, 
nevertheless, this 
is as near as any 
one will ever get to the exact locality of 
this particular belfry from any information 
which I will furnish, and there are good 
reasons for my reticence. 

This belfry caps the quaint tower of a 
curious old Franciscan monastery. It is 
built of red sandstone, seamed and scarred 
by the weathers of many centuries, and 
barnacled all over with gray lichen and 
green moss. It carries within its open 
arches the remnant of a chime of bells 
which are never rung, and overlooks a 



H4 Up a Belfry in Bavaria 

clock which ran down some hundred years 
ago, and has never been wound up since. 
Backed up against the wall of this monas- 
tery is a small church or chapel. Adjoin- 
ing the church is a cloister, surrounded by 
a high wall, on one side of which is an 
open gate or archway, the whole sur- 
mounted by a high peaked roof. 

I had walked up from the lower part of 
the town, where some quaint houses lean- 
ing over a narrow canal, reminding one of 
two old crones gossiping across a street, 
had tempted me to paint them, and catch- 
ing sight of this gate, I loitered in aim- 
lessly. Under the groined arches of the 
cloister were sheltered idle carts and 
wagons. From the sculptured tombs in 
the pavement many restless feet had well- 
nigh effaced all traces of the graven names 
of the holy saints who lay buried beneath. 
It was easy to see that modern Protestant- 
ism had no respect for the traditions of 
the Holy Church. 

Crossing the cloister with its vistas of 
open squares and small culvert-shaped 
arches running under rickety houses, I 
passed a group of heavy columns support- 
ing a low roof, the whole forming a vaulted 



Up a Belfry in Bavaria 115 

room. A grated window at one end cast 
a dim light over an old woman washing. 
She gazed at me solemnly, and pointed to 
a door in the wall. Thinking that this 
was another way out, I turned the knob, 
and found myself in the refectory of the 
monastery and confronted by a kindly- 
faced old friar and a strong smell of cook- 
ery. It was some time before I could 
make him understand how I came there 
and by what mistake, for my knowledge of 
German is only that of a traveler. My 
sketch-book, however, settled it. He 
turned over the leaves slowly, recognized a 
pencil memorandum of the gate, took my 
hat from my hand, hung it on one of a row 
of wooden pegs, and motioning me to a 
seat, dipped a long perforated iron ladle 
into a steaming caldron, dished out some 
boiled potatoes and shreds of meat, and 
placed them on a plate before me. I 
thanked him and ate my rations like a 
friar. 

Then I followed him through the wide, 
bare, white-washed rooms of the ground 
floor, and into the small church, and such 
a shabby old church, too ! Cheap silvered 
candlesticks, cheaper cotton lace on the 



n6 Up a Belfry in Bavaria 

altar-cloth, paper flowers in china vases, 
ugly modern lamps, German lithographs 
edged with gilt paper supplying the places 
of Raphaels and Correggios, and offering 
candles, none of which were burning, fast- 
ened to iron spikes, from which flowed 
streams of tallow telling of former prayers. 
All indicated bitter poverty. 

Even the wrinkled old friar seemed a 
part of the place, — sad, hollow-eyed, and 
barefooted, his waist bound with a cord 
from which hung a wooden cross, and he 
himself as much a tear-stained relic of the 
past as the walls over which the damp of 
ages had trickled. Poor old fellow ! I can 
see him now looking at me wistfully and 
standing patiently as I examined all he 
showed me. 

Finally he said to me, " English ? " " No," 
I replied, " American." He dropped the 
iron hoop which held his keys, and the 
tears started to his eyes. " American, my 
son ? " Then he took my hand and by 
many signs and gestures made me under- 
stand that my country was the future 
home of his church ; that Bavaria in the 
dim past had seen the grandeur and splen- 
dor of the monastery, which had once been 



Up a Belfry in Bavaria ny 

heaped full of riches, and had once been 
proud of its power and prestige, but now 
she had turned her back upon it and had 
left it to decay. As he spoke he picked 
up a small copper censer, poured the ashes 
out in the palm of his hand, and sifted 
them slowly on the floor. 

I encouraged him to talk, and examined 
with him the altar-screen faced with a 
square of some cheap modern fabric, and 
asked him what it was like in the olden 
times? "Velvet and satin, my son, and 
embroidery of gold and silver ; and the 
lamps all solid gold ; the walls were cov- 
ered with paintings, the steps of the altar 
with fine carpets ; and the Archbishop, to 
whom the king kneeled, was clothed in 
lace and scarlet." 

By this time we had circled the small 
church and reached the door, but I was 
not satisfied. I led him back to the altar 
and pointed out the different objects. 
Where now was the old lace ? Was it 
stored away somewhere and only shown to 
travelers ? He shook his head and spread 
his fingers as if it had slipped through 
them years before. Candlesticks ? Lamps ? 
Censers ? Still the same mournful shake. 



ji8 Up a Belfry in Bavaria 

All gone. About the silks and velvets and 
embroideries that covered the face of the 
altar ; where now were they ? He simply 
cast his eyes upward. But this was a new 
piece but a few years old ; what was done 
with the old one ? A gleam of intelligence 
shot across his wrinkled old face, and one 
long, thin finger rested on his forehead. 
He looked at me searchingly from under 
his bushy gray eyebrows, tapped me on 
the shoulder, and led the way back through 
the bare wide rooms and into the seething 
refectory, and up to a row of hooks from 
which hung keys of all shapes and sizes. 
He looked them over carefully, and took 
down a great hoop linking three keys to- 
gether, lighted a lantern, and I followed 
him into the vault-shaped room, past the 
old woman, who bowed and crossed her- 
self, through an open court, from which I 
saw the belfry with the silent chimes, and 
up to a door in its tower heavily grated 
with iron. 

The first key started its rusty bolts, then 
we groped our way up a mouldy stone 
staircase, the friar going ahead feeling his 
way and holding the lantern for me until 
we reached the landing of the first story, 



Up a Belfry in Bavaria 119 

which I noticed was level with the roof of 
the monastery. The daylight struggling 
in through diamond-shaped panes of glass 
begrimed with dirt and cobwebs revealed 
another door. I looked through its grat- 
ings but saw nothing but an empty room. 
The old friar pressed his shrunken cheek 
against the bars, gave a pleased chuckle, 
unlocked them, and pointed to a pile of six 
wooden altar screens leaning against the 
wall and half buried in dust. My heart 
sank within me. 

Not seeing my chagrin he stooped over 
and threw down the first screen. «A cloud 
of dust arose nearly suffocating me. It 
proved to be a worm-eaten frame covered 
with mouldy canvas. The second, the 
same ; the third, mere shreds of worsted, 
with patches of tinsel lace bearing the fig- 
ure of the cross embroidered in faded 
green. The fourth of silk, threadbare and 
stained with the droppings of many can- 
dles. As the dust cleared away from each 
screen the old fellow would look anxiously 
in my face for approval. The fifth — to 
tell you the truth, the fifth took my breath 
away. It was an old gold-colored corded 
silk, as heavy as canvas, and covered with 



j 20 Up a Be/fry in Bavaria 

an exquisite embroidery in silk and silver 
without a break or flaw. The canvas 
backing had protected it from the damp, 
and the sixth screen against the wall had 
saved it in a measure from the grime of 
years. 

I broke all the blades of my knife cut- 
ting this precious relic of the seventeenth 
century from its frame, the good friar on 
his knees meanwhile holding one end taut 
so that I could run my knife close to the 
rusted tacks. 

His enthusiasm was delightful as he read 
my face, for the discovery was evidently as 
much of a surprise to him as to me. " Now 
I would believe the truth of all the stories 
of the magnificence of the olden times." 
And then he lifted it tenderly and carried 
it as carefully down the treacherous stair- 
case as if it had been blessed by the Pope, 
and spread it on the grass in the sunlight. 

I sat down upon the tomb of an old saint 
and feasted my eyes. 

It was Italian, without doubt, worked in 
twisted silk and silver in a design of leaves 
and flowers, the whole in delicate tones of 
pale yellows, pinks, and turquoise blue. 
Soiled and stained, of course, but that did 



Up a Belfry in Bavaria 121 

not trouble me. I knew a little French- 
woman near St. Cloud who could take 
half a loaf of fresh bread and with it work 
a charm upon its old gold background. 

Then I tried a charm of my own with 
some new gold upon the palm of my old 
friar. To my surprise he refused it. " No, 
take it to America. They would appreciate 
it there. It was nothing here, — all dead, 
all ashes, all forgotten." Well, then, for 
the poor ? Yes, he would take it for the 
poor. There were plenty of them always. 
He would give the money to the bishop for 
the poor. 

As he pressed my hand at the gate his 
eyes filled, and pointing to the monastery 
he said slowly, " Never here, my son. In 
America." 

It was not until I reached my lodgings 
with my prize that I thought of the sixth 
screen, which in my great joy I had neg- 
lected to turn down. What could that 
have been ? 

This question I am not yet able to an- 
swer, and until I am I shall not tell any- 
body where in Bavaria is my belfry. 



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